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HERBERT SPENCER 



AND HIS CRITICS. 



BY 
/ 

CHARLES B. WAITE, A. M., 

Author of u History of the Christian Re- 
ligion to the Year 200," "A Conspira- 
cy Against the Republic," etc. 



CHICAGO: 

C. V. Waite & Co. 

1900. 






TWO COPIES RfclOEiVJED, 

Library of Control* 
Offloe of thu 

APR 9 - 1900 

K^glitor of Copyright* 

OCT 26 I90u 



^ 



Copyright 1900 



CHARLES B. WAITE. 



PREFACE. 

The character of this work, so far as it con- 
sists of extracts from the writings of others, will 
be seen from the following letter from one who 
is well known in the literary world, and who 
himself maintained a discussion with Mr. Spen- 
cer, carried on on both sides with great brill- 
iancy and power: 

38 Westbourne Terrace, London, W., 

Fernhurst, Sussex, Aug. 20, 1898. 
Dear Sir: 1 beg to thank you for your courtesy in 
forwarding to me the series of papers in the Boston- 
Investigator, which I should have acknowledged much 
sooner but for the fact that it was sent to the pub- 
lishers whilst I was away from home and about the 
country. 

The extracts you have so carefully prepared seem to 
me to have been made with great accuracy and intel- 
ligence, and I think they should be satisfactory to Mr. 
Spencer, as they are to myself. 
I am yours faithfully, 

Frederic Harrison. 

Interspersed with and following the extracts 
here referred to, the author has made criticisms 
of his own, which, it is hoped, will at least ba 
found worthy of thoughtful consideration. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Chapter I.. ..The New Philosophy — Doctrine of 
the Unknowable 1 

" II.. ..The New Philosophy continued — 
Doctrine of the Knowable 8 

" III.. ..The New Philosophy continued- 
Doctrine of Evolution 12 

" IV.... The New Philosophy continued- 
Spencers Biology 20 

" V.. ..The New Philosophy continued — 
Spencer's Psychology 27 

" VI.. ..The New Philosophy continued- 
Subjective Psychology 34 

" VII. ..The New Philosophy continued- 
Spencer's Sociology 41 

" VIII.. ..The New Philosophy continued- 
Principles of Ethics— Work on 
Education— Essays, etc 49 

" IX.. ..Criticism by Malcolm Guthrie 58 

u X... .Spencer and John Stuart Mill 66 

M XI... Spencer and Frederic Harrison 72 

•' XII... .Criticisms and Eulogiums— Watson— 
Bowne— Robertson 80 

" XIII.... Criticisms continued— Mansel— Caird 
— Hodgson — Max Mueller— Sidg- 
wick— James Martineau — Moul- 
ton — Professor Green 87 

" XIV.. ..Criticisms continued— Mears, Atwa- 
ter— Wynn— Stebbins— Alger 94 

u XV.. ..Criticisms continued— Bascom— Lil- 
ly— Barry— The Quarterly — Fair- 
bairn 101 



PAGE 

Chap. XVI... .Criticisms continued — Review by 

Orestes A. Brownson 108 

" XVII... .Criticisms by Professor Birks and 

Mons. Littre* 114 

" XVI1L... Criticisms concluded- Wilfred Ward 
—St. George Mivart— A. J. Bal 
four 121 

" XIX.. ..Space and Time— Consciousness 128 

XX.. ..The Unknowable.— First Cause 137 

" XXL. ..Doctrine of the Unknowable— Crea- 
tion— Atheism— Agnosticism 144 

" XXII.... Doctrine of the Unknowable— Dim 

or Vague Consciousness 153 

" XXIII.. ..Doctrine of the Unknowable— An- 
tithesis of Thought 161 

11 XXIV. . . Doctrine of the Unknowable— Ideal- 
ism 169 

" XXV.. ..Reconciliation between Science and 

Religion 177 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 



Alger, W. R., 99, 100. 
Atwater, T. H., 96. 
Bain, Prof., 97, 158, 159. 
Balfour, A. J., 57, 123-127. 

181. 
Barry, Wm., 103,104. 
Bascom, John, Dr., 101,102. 
Berkeley, Bishop, 36, 174. 
Birks,Thos. R., 114-118, 174. 
Bowne, B. P., 80-84. 
Brownson, O. A., 105, 108 

113, 148. 
Caird, Principal, 88. 
Comte, Auguste, 9, 56, 70, 

76, 78, 79, 83, 164, 168. 
Cousin, 81, 82, 165. 
Darwin, Charles, 97, 121. 
Descartes, 83. 
Fairbairn, A. M., 105-107. 
Fiske, John, Prof., 97, 183. 
Green, Prof., 93. 
Guthrie, Malcolm, 58-65. 
Hamilton, Sir Wm., 64, 82, 

87, 88, 130, 155, 156, 164, 

165, 167,168. 
Harrison, Frederic, 72,79, 

121 122 
Hodgson, S. H., 88, 89. 
Hume, David, 36, 174. 
Kant, Emanuel, 89, 90. 
Kepler, 17. 
Larousse, 63. 



Laugel, Mons., 118, 119. 
Lilly, W. S., 102, 103. 
Littr£, E., Mons., 118-120. 
Locke, 90. 

Malebranche, 144, 146. 
Mansel, Henry L., 87, 88, 

155, 156, 164, 168. 
Martineau, James, 81, 91, 

92, 133, 163. 
Mears, John W., 94-96. 
Mill, John Stuart, 63, 66-71, 

82,94,115,123,124, 129, 

148, 149, 163. 
Mivart, St. George, 122, 123. 
Moulton, J. F., 92, 93. 
Mueller, Max, 90. 
Newton, 68. 
Pestalozzi, 54. 
Quarterly, The, writer in, 

104, 105. 
Robertson, John M., 84-86. 
Scaliger, 159. 
Sidgwick, H., 90, 91, 132. 
Stebbins, Rufus P., 99. 
Tyndall, John, 11. 
Voltaire, 83, 84, 163. 
Von Baer, 24. 
Ward, Wilfred, 121,122. 
Watson, R. A., 80. 
Whewell, Dr., 67. 
Wynn, W. H., Prof., 97-99. 
Youmans, Prof., 79, 97. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE NEW PHILOSOPHY — DOCTRINE OF THE UN- 
KNOWABLE. 

No writer of the Nineteenth Century has had 
greater influence in the world of thought than 
Herbert Spencer. At the same time no one has 
been more severely and unsparingly criticised. 

These criticisms, with his replies, have exhib- 
ited an intellectual gladiatorship such as has 
seldom been witnessed; one which has had the 
effect to arouse discussion and to stimulate 
thought and inquiry all along the lines of his 
philosophy. His works are now complete. 
The labors of a life-time have been brought to a 
close. 

Spencer, as a scientist, is one of the deepest 
thinkers and one of the ablest and most forcible 
writers of this or any other age. As a scientist, 
studying the laws of Nature, and tracing those 
laws in the changing phenomena of the uni- 
verse, his greatness will be acknowledged by all. 
But his ambition had a broader scope. He as- 
pired to co-ordinate and combine science with 
philosophy; not merely with that positive or 

(1) 



2 
practical philosophy which consists of the high- 
est generalizations of science, but with meta- 
physical and speculative philosophy as well. 
Through such co-ordination and combination, 
he not only sought to unify all knowledge, but, 
confessedly going beyond the boundaries of sci- 
ence—venturing into unknown regions — he un- 
dertook to establish unknowable existence. 

Nor did he stop here. This combined system 
of philosophical science he now essayed to co- 
ordinate and combine with theology. His doc- 
trine of the Unknowable he himself calls a "rnet- 
aphysico-theological doctrine." Proposing to 
identify the unknowable of science and philoso- 
phy with the highest conception of Deity, he at- 
tempted a reconciliation between science and 
religion. 

To this vast scheme — this combined system 
of science, philosophy, metaphysics and theolo- 
gy, he gave the name of 

THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 

So far as the system is new — so far as it is a 
departure from the landmarks hitherto estab- 
lished in the fields of science and philosophy — 
it has undergone the critical examination of ma- 
ny thinkers, and must still be subjected to the 
crucial test of the sober second thought. It is 
worthy of note that some of the most trenchant 
criticisms have been on the speculative side of 
the New Philosophy. That they have not all 
been without effect, has been made manifest by 



3 
such occasional change in the text of Mr. Spen- 
cer's works as seemed necessary. 

In this work I purpose, first, to give a brief 
but complete view of the New Philosophy; sec- 
ondly, to state the salient points of the principal 
criticisms which have been made upon it; giv- 
ing such extracts as may best elucidate the 
points made; and finally, to examine the doc- 
trine of the Unknowable ; especially in reference 
to the claim that is made, that this doctrine is 
sufficient to effect a reconciliation between sci- 
ence and religion. 

THE SPENCERIAN PHILOSOPHY. 

In giving a synopsis of the New Philosophy, 
let us commence with that which, by the author 
himself, is ever put foremost: 

DOCTRINE OF THE UNKNOWABLE. 

The Unknowable of Spencer is not the mere 
negation of the knowable. He posits the abso- 
lute and independent existence of the Infinite as 
Ultimate Being, and First Cause. 

Though Ultimate Being is conceded to be 
both unknowable and unthinkable, at the same 
time he maintains that it is ;i known with abso- 
lute certainty as existing." 

To this Unknowable he gives many names: 

Cause — First Cause — Unknown Cause — Ulti- 
mate Cause — Incomprehensible Cause — Uncon- 
ditioned Cause — Absolute Cause — Force — Un- 
known Force — Pure Force — Absolute Force — 
Power — Unknown Power — Unknowable Power 



4 

— Incomprehensible Power — Creating Power — 
Sustaining Power — Universal Power — Inscruta- 
ble Power — Existence — Keal Existence — Abso- 
lute Existence — Ultimate Existence — Being — 
Absolute Being — Ultimate Being — Uncondi- 
tioned Being — Reality — Unknown Reality — 
Absolute Reality — Unseen Reality — Uncondi- 
tioned Reality — Ultimate Fact — Noumenon — 
The Unknowable — The Infinite — The Absolute 
— The Actual — The Creating — The Inexplicable 
— The Unconditioned — The Unlimited - The 
Non-relative — The Unformed— The Incompre- 
hensible—The Omnipresent— The Unaccounta- 
ble—The Inconceivable— The Unthinkable— The 
Supernatural. 

Spencer does not claim to arrive at the exist- 
ence of the Unknowable by any process of logic. 
On the contrary, he shows in the clearest man- 
ner, that it cannot be reached by any logical pro- 
cess. He first undertakes to prove the existence 
of a First Cause. But he immediately cautions 
his reader against adopting the conclusion; stat- 
ing that the reasoning is illusive and fallacious, 
because one of the terms in the proposition in 
each stage of the argument, is unthinkable. 
The Unknowable cannot be made the subject of 
logical deduction, because, when logic is em- 
ployed for the ascertainment of truth, both 
terms of every proposition must be such as can 
be formulated in thought. 

How, then, is the existence of the Infinite to 
be posited? 



5 

It is to be clone in three ways: 

First, from a vague or dim consciousness. 

,; Besides that definite consciousness of which Logic 
formulates the laws, there is also an indefinite con- 
sciousness which cannot be formulated.'' " To say 
that we cannot know the Absolute, is by implication 
to affirm that there is an Absolute. In the very denial 
of our power to learn what the Absolute is, there lies 
hidden the assumption that it is; and the making of 
this assumption proves that the Absolute has been 
present to the mind, not as a nothing, but as a some- 
thing."— [First Principles, Sec. 26. 

Spencer holds that we are obliged to form a 
positive though vague consciousness of that 
which transcends distinct consciousness. 

" Our consciousness of the unconditioned being lit- 
erally the unconditioned consciousness, or raw mate- 
rial of thought to which in thinking we give definite 
forms, it follows that an ever-present sense of real ex- 
istence is the very basis of our intelligence. As we 
can in successive mental acts get rid of all particular 
conditions and replace them by others, but cannot get 
rid of that undifferentiated substance of consciousness 
which is conditioned anew in every thought; there ever 
remains with us a sense of that which exists persistently 
and independently of conditions. At the same time 
that by the laws of thought we are rigorously prevent- 
ed from forming a conception of absolute existence; 
we are by the laws of thought equally prevented from 
ridding ourselves of the consciousness of absolute ex- 
istence: this consciousness being, as we have seen, the 
obverse of our self-consciousness. And since the only 
possible measure of relative validity among our be- 
liefs, is the degree of their persistence in opposition to 
the efforts made to change them, it follows that this, 
which persists at all times, under all circumstances, 



6 

and cannot cease until consciousness ceases, has the 
i validity of any." [Ibid. 
Hence the existence of the Unknowable is 
considered by Mr. Spencer the most certain of 
all t rut lis. 

Another mode in which he posits the Un- 
knowable, is by the antithesis of thought: 

M Prom the very necessity of thinking in relations, it 
follows that the Relative itself is inconceivable, except 
a- related to a real Non-relative. AVe have seen that 
unless a real Xon-relative or Absolute be postulated, 
the Relative itself becomes absolute, and so brings the 
argument to a contradiction." " In the very assertion 
that all our knowledge, properly so called, is Kelative, 
there is involved the assertion that there exists a Xon- 
relative."'— [Ibid. 

Hence the Non-relative is posited as the an- 
tithesis and correlative of the Relative — the Un- 
limited and Unconditioned is posited as the an- 
tithesis and correlative of the limited and con- 
ditioned, and the Infinite as the antithesis and 
correlative of the finite. 

The third mode of arriving at the Unknowa- 
ble, is by postulating it as the highest generali- 
zation of science. 

Since the highest generalization of science is 

the persistence of force, and since the nature of 

this force is unknown, it is assumed to be the 

( ratable Power behind all phenomena, which 

4 in matter and motion. 

This Unknown Force is the Incomprehensible 

r manifested in all phenomena. n The 

idea in religion, also, is the acknowl- 



7 

edgment of the existence of an Inscrutable 
Power. Thus science and religion are brought 
together, and the conflict which has lasted for 
ages, is brought to an end. 

This is the reconciliation of religion with sci- 
ence. 



CHAPTEK II. 

THE NEW PHILOSOPHY CONTINUED— DOCTRINE OF 
THE KNOWABLE. 

Coming into the region of the Knowable, Mr. 
Spencer defines Philosophy as knowledge of the 
highest generality. This is by some writers des- 
ignated as practical or positive philosophy, as 
distinguished from speculative philosophy. But 
he prefers simply the term Philosophy. 

" Science," he says, "consists of truths existing more 
or less separated; and does not recognize these truths 
ntirely integrated."— [First Principles, Sec. 37.] "As 
each widest generalization of Science comprehends and 
consolidates the narrower generalizations of its own 
division, so the generalizations of Philosophy compre- 
hend and consolidate the widest generalizations of Sci- 
ence Knowledge of the lowest kind is un-unifled 

knowledge; Science is partially -unified knowledge; 
Philosophy is completely -unified knowledge."— [Ibid. 

Again: We have this statement of the scope 
and province of science: 

' Science concerns itself with the co-existences and 
,uences among phenomena; grouping these at first 
into generalizations of a simple or low order, and ris- 
ing gradually to higher and more extended generaliza- 
tions.'' [Ibid. 

(8) 



9 

Having thus established the boundary line be- 
tween science and philosophy, the next step is to 
find some data of philosophy; some means by 
which the student of philosophy may know 
when he is making any advance. This data is 
found in the assumption that the congruities 
and incongruities of phenomena, which are at- 
tested by our consciousness, do really exist. 

44 The assumption that a congruity or an incongrui- 
ty exists when consciousness testifies to it, is an inevit- 
able assumption."— [First Prin., Sec. 41. 

This is one of the data of philosophy; but this 
is in the process of thought. There must also 
be a datum In the product of thought. 

Auguste Comte thinks it impossible to sub- 
ject to a critical analysis the relation between 
subject and object. Mr. Spencer, however, 
thinks otherwise; and undertakes to analyze this 
relation. The conclusion is, 

44 That the manifestations of the Unknowable fall 
into the two separate aggregates constituting the 
world of consciousness and the world beyond con- 
sciousness."— [First Prin., Sec. 45. 

44 The manifestations of the Unknowable, separated 
into the two divisions of self and not-self, are re-divis- 
ible into certain most general forms, the reality of 
which Science, as well as Common Sense, from moment 
to moment assumes."— [Ibid. 

SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 

44 Our consciousness of Space is a consciousness of 
co-existent positions."— [First Prin., Sec. 47. 

"And since a position is not an entity— since the con- 
geries of positions which constitute any conceived 



10 

portion of space, and mark its bounds, are not sensible 
existences, it follows that the co-existent positions 
which make up our consciousness of Space, are not co- 
existences in the full sense of the word, (which implies 
realities as their terms,) but are the blank forms of co- 
existences left behind when the realities are absent; 
that is, are the abstracts of co-existences."— [Ibid. 

Space is purely relative. 

" Is there an absolute Space which relative Space in 
some sort represents ? Is Space in itself a form or 
condition of absolute existence, producing in our 
minds a corresponding form or condition of relative 
existence? These are unanswerable questions." — 
[Ibid. 

Parallel remarks are made concerning time. 

" Our conception of Matter, reduced to its simplest 
shape, is that of co-existent positions that offer resist- 
ance, as contrasted with our conception of Space, in 
which the co-existent positions offer no resistance." — 
[First Prin., Sec. 48. 

" The conception of Motion, as presented or repre- 
sented in the developed consciousness, involves the 
conceptions of Space, of Time, and of Matter. A 
something that moves; a series of positions occupied 
in succession; and a group of co-existent positions, 
united in thought with the successive ones— these are 
the constituents of the idea." — [Ibid. 

Force is the ultimate of ultimates. 

" Though Space, Time, Matter, and Motion are ap- 
parently all necessary data of intelligence, yet a psy- 
chological analysis (here indicated only in rude out- 
line) shows us that these are either built up of, or ab- 
stracted from, experiences of force. Matter and Mo- 
tion, as we know them, are differently conditioned 
manifestations of Force. Space and Time, as we know 
them, are disclosed along with these different mani- 



11 

festations of Force as the conditions under which 
they are presented." — [First Prin., Sec. 50. 

Our author next proceeds to comment on the 
indestructibility of Matter, the continuity of 
Motion, and the persistence of Force. 

The persistence of the relations among forces, 
ordinarily called uniformity of law, is a necessa- 
ry implication from the fact that Force can 
neither arise out of nothing nor lapse into no- 
thing. 

The Rhythm of Motion forms the subject of 
a chapter, in which Mr. Spencer claims that all 
motion is rhythmical. In this doctrine he was 
supported by Professor Tyndall. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE NEW PHILOSOPHY CONTINUED —DOCTRINE OF 
EVOLUTION. 

"An entire history of any thing must include its ap- 
pearance out of the imperceptible and its disappear- 
ance into the imperceptible." — [First Prin., Sec. 93. 

The sphere of knowledge is co-extensive with 
the phenomenal. Whenever any thing acts upon 
our senses under a sensible form, unless it ac- 
quired its form at the moment of perception, 
and lost its sensible form the moment after per- 
ception, 

"It must have had an antecedent existence under 
this sensible form, and will have a subsequent exist- 
ence under this sensible form. These preceding and 
succeeding existences under sensible forms, are possi- 
ble subjects of knowledge; and knowledge has obvi- 
ously not reached its limits until it has united the 
past, present, and future histories into a whole." — [Ibid. 
" Setting out abruptly as we do with some substance 
which already had a concrete form, our history is in- 
complete; the thing had a history preceding the state 
with which we started. Hence our theory of things, 
considered individually or in their totality, is confess- 
edly imperfect so long as any past or future portions 
of their sensible existences are unaccounted for." — 

[Ibid. 

(12) 






13 

Philosophy has to formulate this passage 
from the imperceptible into the perceptible, and 
again from the perceptible into the impercepti- 
ble. 

The general law of the redistribution of mat- 
ter and motion, which is required to unify the 
various kinds of changes, 

" Must also be one that unifies the successive changes 
which sensible existences, separately and together, 
pass through."— [Ibid. 

In recognizing the fact that Science, tracing 
back the genealogies of various objects, finds 
their components were once in diffused states, 
and pursuing their histories forwards, finds dif- 
fused states will again be assumed by them, we 
have recognized the fact that the formula re- 
quired for reducing knowledge to a coherent 
whole, mnst be one comprehending the two op- 
posite processes of concentration and diffusion. 

"The change from a diffused, imperceptible state, to 
a concentrated, perceptible state, is an integration of 
matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; and the 
change from a concentrated, perceptible state, to a dif- 
fused, imperceptible state, is an absorption of motion 
and concomitant disintegration of matter."— [First 
Prin., Sec. 94. 

"When taken together, the two opposite processes 
thus formulated constitute the history of every sensi- 
ble existence, under its simplest form. "—[Ibid. 

But neither of these processes is ever wholly 
unqualified by the other: 

" For each aggregate is at all times both gaining mo- 
tion and losing motion."— [First Prin., Sec. 96. 



14 

Evolution, then, 
" Under its simplest and most general aspect, is the in- 
tegration of matter and concomitant dissipation of 
motion; while dissolution is the absorption of motion, 
and concomitant disintegration of matter."— [First 
Prin., Sec. 97. 

Simple Evolution may also be stated to be, a 
change from a less coherent form to a more co- 
herent form, consequent on the dissipation of 
motion and integration of matter. — [Ibid. 

This is the simplest form of Evolution. But 
there is not only a primary but a secondary re- 
distribution of matter in the parts of an aggre- 
gate; and this brings us to compound Evolu- 
tion. 

This compound Evolution may be stated thus : 

" The primary redistribution ends in forming aggre- 
gates which are simple where it is rapid, but w r hich be- 
come compound in proportion as its slowness allows 
the effects of secondary redistributions to accumulate." 
—[First Prin., Sec. 105. 

"To say that the primary redistribution is accompa- 
nied by secondary redistributions, is to say that along 
with the change from a diffused to a concentrated 
state, there goes on a change from a homogeneous 
state to a heterogeneous state. The components of the 
mass while they become integrated also become differ- 
entiated."— [First Prin., Sec. 116. 

This is the second aspect under which to study 
Evolution. While the first is progressive inte- 
gration, this is progressive differentiation. 

Both of these forms of Evolution are ex- 
plained by illustrations drawn from the various 
sciences : From astronomy, from geology, psy- 



15 

chology, biology, sociology, philology. Also 
from the arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, 
etc., poetry, and music. 

Evolution may now be defined as a 

" Change from an incoherent homogeneity to a coher- 
ent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of 
motion and integration of matter."— [First Prin., Sec. 
127. 

But there is another phase to the doctrine. 

"At the same time that Evolution is a change from 
the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, it is a change 
from the indefinite to the definite. Along with an ad- 
vance from simplicity to complexity, there is an ad- 
vance from confusion to order— from undetermined 
arrangement to determined arrangement. Develop- 
ment, no matter of what kind, exhibits not only a mul- 
tiplication of unlike parts, but an increase in the dis- 
tinctness with which these parts are marked off from 
one another."- [First Prin., Sec. 129. 

Here again, many illustrations are given, 
drawn from the various sciences. In illustra- 
tions from the solar system, references are con- 
stantly made to the nebular theory as probable. 
In every instance it is found to accord with the 
doctrine of Evolution. Though the nebular the- 
ory is not here adopted, it should be stated that 
in his Essay on the Nebular Hypothesis, as re- 
vised in 1890, Mr. Spencer says: " Practically 
demonstrated as this process now is, we may say 
that the doctrine of nebular genesis has passed 
from the region of hypothesis into the region of 
established truth." 

" The more specific idea of Evolution now reached 
is— a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogene- 



16 

ity. to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, accompanying 
tlio dissipation of motion and integration of matter." 

[First Prin.,Sec. 138. 

This is the third phase of Evolution. 

But the synthesis is not yet complete. 

Thus far, only the redistribution of matter has 
been attended to; the accompanying redistribu- 
tion of motion having been neglected. 

" In proportion as Evolution becomes compound- 
in proportion as an aggregate retains, for a considera- 
ble time, such a quantity of motion as permits sec- 
ondary redistributions of its component matter, there 
necessarily arise secondary redistributions of its re- 
tained motion. As fast as the parts are transformed 
there goes on a transformation of the sensible or in- 
sensible motion possessed by the parts. The parts 
cannot become progressively integrated, either individ- 
ually or as a combination, without their motions, in- 
dividually or combined, becoming more integrated. 
There cannot arise among the parts heterogeneities of 
size, of form, of quality, without there also arising 
heterogeneities in the amounts and directions of their 
motions, or the motions of their molecules. And in- 
creasing definiteness of the parts implies increasing 
deiiniteness of their motions. 

"In short, the rhythmical actions going on in each 
aggregate, must differentiate and integrate at the 
same time that the structure does so."— [First Prin., 
Sec. m. 

This is the fourth and final phase of the doc- 
trine of Evolution, which must now be stated as 
follows: 

" Evolution is an integration of matter and concom- 
itant dissipation of motion; during which the matter 
from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to 



17 

a definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during which 
the retained motion undergoes a parallel transforma- 
tion."— [First Prin., Sec. 145. 

Having thus completed the synthesis, and 
having stated the doctrine of Evolution in its 
ultimate form, we must now look for some all- 
pervading principle which underlies this all-per- 
vading process. 

"Just as it was possible to interpret the empiricai 
generalizations called Kepler's laws, as necessary con- 
sequences of the law of gravitation; so it may be pos- 
sible to interpret the foregoing empirical generaliza- 
tions as necessary consequences of some deeper law." 
—[First Prin., Sec. 14(>. 

This law is found to be the persistence of 
force. — [First Prin., Sec. 155. 

There is another cause of increasing complex- 
ity — another cause which necessitates a change 
from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous; 
and which, when joined to the first, makes the 
change more rapid and more involved. This is 
the multiplicity of effects following from a sin- 
gle force. 

The general interpretation of Evolution is not 
yet complete. 

The laws set forth furnish a key to the re-ar- 
rangement of parts which Evolution exhibits, in 
so far as it is an advance from the uniform to 
the multiform. We must now have a key to this 
re-arrangement in so far as it is an advance from 
the indefinite to the definite. This key is found 
in the law by virtue of which such portions of 
the permanently effective forces acting on any 



18 
aggregate, as produced sensible motions in its 
parts, work a segregation of those parts. This 
is called the law of segregation. 

The redistributions of matter going on around 
us, are ever being brought to conclusions by the 
dissipation of the motions which affect them. 
In all cases, there is a process toward equilibra- 
tion. This law of equilibration is deducible 
from the persistence of force. 

There is a gradual advance toward harmony 
between man's mental nature and the conditions 
of his existence. Hence we have a warrant for 
the belief that Evolution can end only in the es- 
tablishment of the greatest perfection and the 
most complete happiness. 

Dissolution is a process the reverse of that 
traced in the history and genesis of Evolution. 
The law of equilibration and the law of the 
rhythm of motion render probable alternate eras 
of Evolution and Dissolution. 

There is no guaranty for the permanent exist- 
ence of the race. The outcome of the processes 
of equilibration constantly going on, not only on 
the surface of the earth but in the solar system, 
must be omnipresent death. — [First Prin., Sec. 
176. 

Carrying the argument still further, based up- 
on what may be called the rhythm of the uni- 
verse, we are led to infer a subsequent universal 
life. +> 

"And thus there is suggested the conception of a 
past during which there have been successive Evolu- 



19 

tions analogous to that which is now going on; and a 
future during which successive other such Evolutions 
may go on — ever the same in principle but never the 
same in concrete result." — [First Prin., Sec. is3. 

In closing a summary of the New Philosophy, 
it is claimed that it is neither materialistic nor 
spiritualistic; or rather, that it is as much the 
one as the other. 

"Though the relation of subject and object renders 
necessary to us these antithetical conceptions of spirit 
and matter; the one is no less than the other to be re- 
garded as but a sign of the Unknown Reality which 
underlies both." — [First Prin., Sec. 194. 

The foregoing outline of the New Philosophy 
must now be rilled up with a summary of Spen- 
cer's Biology, Psychology, and Sociology: also 
of his "Data of Ethics"; with a glance at his 
other writini 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE NEW PHILOSOPHY CONTINUED — SPENCER'S BI- 
OLOGY. 

In the first volume, the author treats of the 
general principles of the science, as connected 
with the doctrine of Evolution. 

The four chief elements which, in various com- 
binations, make up living bodies, are oxygen, hy- 
drogen, nitrogen and carbon. Three are gaseous, 
and are known only in the aeriform state, while 
carbon is known only as a solid. 

There is a certain significance in this, when we 
take into account the fact that the phenomena 
of Evolution imply motions in the units that are 
involved in the redistribution of matter and mo- 
tion. There is a probable meaning in the fact 
that organic bodies, which exhibit the phenom- 
ena of Evolution in so high a degree, are mainly 
composed of ultimate units having extreme mo- 
bility. 

A portion of organic matter of a living organ- 
ism, contains several of these elements, and their 
mobility is an aid to the vital processes. 

Mechanical forces produce important changes 
(20) 



21 

in organic bodies; but the agency of chief im- 
portance is chemical affinity. 

Life. — Life is the continuous adjustment of 
internal relations to external relations. The 
degree of life varies as the degree of correspond- 
ence. 

Inductions of Biology. — These are: Growth 
— Development — Function — Waste and Repair 
— Adaptation — Individuality — Genesis — Hered- 
ity — Variation — Classification — Distribution. 

Growth is dependent on the available supply 
of such environing matters as are of like nature 
with the matters composing the organism. The 
available supply of assimilable matter being the 
same, and other conditions not dissimilar, the 
degree of growth varies according to the surplus 
of nutrition over expenditure. This surplus of 
nutrition over expenditure, is a variable quanti- 
ty; and, other things being equal, upon it de- 
pends the limit of growth. 

Development is primarily central. All or- 
ganic forms of which the entire history is known, 
set out with a symmetrical arrangement of parts 
round a center. This central development may 
be distinguished into unicentral, where the pro- 
duct of the original germ develops symmetri- 
cally round one center; or multicentral, where 
the development is in subordination to many 
centers. 

Stkucture and Function. — Does Structure 
originate Function, or does Function originate 



22 
Structure? The answer is not easy; but the au- 
thor considers that Function must be regarded 
as taking precedence of Structure. Both Struc- 
ture and Function progress from the homogene- 
neous, indefinite and incoherent, to the hetero- 
geneous, definite and coherent. 

In discussing the question of Waste and Re- 
paik, the author comes to the conclusion that 
there are certain physiological units which are 
concerned in this process, and which possess an 
organic polarity not possessed by chemical units 
nor by morphological units. 

Adaptation requires that organic types 
should be comparatively stable. The structure 
of any organism being a product of the almost 
infinite series of actions and re-actions to which 
all ancestral organisms have been exposed, it 
follows that any unusual actions and re-actions 
brought to bear on an individual, can have but 
an infinitessimal effect in permanently changing 
the structure of the organism as a whole. 

Individuality. — We may consider as an indi- 
vidual, any center or axis that is capable of in- 
dependently carrying on that continuous adjust- 
ment of inner to outer relations which consti- 
tutes Life. 

Genesis. — There is homogenesis, and hetero- 
genesis. Homogenesis, in which successive gen- 
erations are alike, is by sexual genesis, or gamo- 
genesis. But in heterogenesis, which is char- 
acterized by unlikeness of the successive genera- 



23 

tions. there is agamogenesis occasionally recur- 
ring with gamogenesis. 

Heredity and Variation. — The phenome- 
na of heredity assimilate with other phenomena. 
We must conclude that the likeness of any or- 
ganism to either parent, is conveyed by the spe- 
cial tendencies of the physiological units derived 
from the parent. Homogeneity being an unsta- 
ble state, variations must occur. 

The biological CLASSIFICATION is based upon 
natural differences between individuals, species, 
genera, orders, and classes. 

The subject of Distribution is treated in ref- 
erence to the distribution of organisms through 
space and time. 

Coming to the Evolution <>f Life, the subject 

is considered under the Special Creation hypoth- 
esis, and under the hypothesis of Evolution. 
The arguments from Classification, the argu- 
ments from Embryology, from Morphology, and 

from Distribution, are all considered. 

The question is treated with reference to the 
external factors and the internal factors — in ref- 
erence to direct and indirect equilibration. 

The theory of Special Creation originated in 
an era of darkness, is unsupported by facts, and 
cannot be definitely formulated in thought. The 
Evolution hypothesis has the opposite character- 
istics. In regard to Classification, the kinship 
of groups through their lowest members, is just 
the kinship which the philosophy of Evolution 
implies. 



24 

Embryology. — Von Baer set forth this re- 
markable induction: 

In its earliest stage, every organism has the 
greatest number of characters in common with 
all other organisms in their earliest stages. At 
a stage somewhat later, its structure is like the 
structures displayed at corresponding phases by 
a less extensive multitude of organisms. At 
each subsequent stage, traits are acquired which 
successively distinguish the developing embryo 
from groups of embryos that it previously re- 
sembled — thus step by step diminishing the 
class of embryos which it still resembles. Thus 
the class of similar forms is finally narrowed to 
the species of which it is a member. 

This induction is adopted by Mr. Spencer 
and made the basis of an argument in favor of 
the production of organic forms by a process of 
Evolution. 

From Morphology an analogous argument is 
drawn; while arguments are found also in the 
distribution of Flora and Fauna over the globe. 

In the second volume of his Biology, Mr. 
Spencer treats of the problems of Morphology 
(structure) , and of Physiology (function) , and 
of the Laws of Multiplication as applied to or- 
ganisms. 

Morphology. — Evolution implies insensible 
modifications and gradual transitions, which ren- 
der definition difficult — which make it impossi- 
ble to separate absolutely the phases of organi- 
zation from one another. The doctrine that all 



25 

organisms are built up of cells, or that cells are 
the elements out of which every tissue is devel- 
oped, is but approximately true. 

In the course of development, both animals 
and plants display not only progressive integra- 
tions, but progressive differentiations of the re- 
sulting aggregates, both as wholes and in their 
parts. 

Physiology — Function. — The author next 
proceeds to consider those differentiations and 
integrations of organic functions which have 
simultaneously arisen with the processes of inte- 
gration and differentiation of organic form; — 
how heterogeneities of action have progressed 
along with heterogeneities of structure. 

The author holds that there must be a contin- 
ual adaptation of structure, such as opposes to 
new outer forces equal inner forces, and that 
such re-adjustment is inheritable. 

Laws of Multiplication. — If organisms have 
been evolved, their respective powers of multi- 
plication must have been determined by natural 
causes. Grant that the countless specialities of 
structure and function in plants and animals, 
have arisen from the actions and re-actions be- 
tween them and their environments, continued 
from generation to generation, and it follows 
that from these actions and re-actions have also 
arisen those countless degrees of fertility which 
we see among them. 

The forces preservative of race are two: abil- 



26 

ity in each member of the race to preserve it- 
self, and ability to produce other members. 

There is an opposition in organisms between 
self-maintenance and maintenance of the race. 
Assuming other things to remain the same — as- 
suming that environing conditions as to climate, 
food, enemies, etc., continue constant; then, in- 
evitably, every higher degree of individual evo- 
lution is followed by a lower degree of race-mul- 
tiplication, and vice versa. 

The author concludes that in man the tenden- 
cy is to a condition when there will be a sub- 
stantial balance between the mortality and the 
number of births in a generation. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE NEW PHILOSOPHY CONTINUED — SPENCER'S 
PSYCHOLOGY. 

The first volume deals with what is designat- 
ed, in the closing paragraph, as Objective Psy- 
chology, in contradistinction to Subjective Psy- 
chology, which is treated in the second volume. 

In considering the data of Psychology, the 
nervous system is described, first, in its struc- 
ture, and secondly, in its functions. 

The most striking contrast between the lowest 
animals and the highest, is that which exists 
between the small self-mobility of the one and 
the great self-mobility of the other. This is il- 
lustrated by reference to various animals, and 
leads to an examination of the internal differ- 
ences. Where activity begins to show itself a 
nervous system begins to be visible. And when 
the power of self-government is great, the nerv- 
ous system is comparatively well developed. 
There is also an increment of nervous endow- 
ment, corresponding with each increment of com- 
plexity. 

These psychological phenomena, under their 
(27) 



28 
objective aspect, when reduced to their lowest 
terms, are incidents in the continuous redistri- 
bution of matter and motion. 

STRUCTURE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

The nervous system is composed of two tis- 
sues, which both differ considerably from those 
composing the rest of the organism. They are 
usually distinguished from one another by their 
colors, as gray and white, and by their minute 
structures, as vesicular and fibrous. Chemical 
analyses have not at present thrown more than a 
flickering light on the constitution of nerve- 
matter in general, or on the constitution of one 
kind of nerve-matter, as contrasted with the oth- 
er. All that can be asserted with safety is, that 
each kind contains phosphatic fats and protein 
substances; but that these components are both 
differently distributed and in different states in 
the two tissues. 

The gray tissue consists of nerve-cells, the 
white of nerve-fibers. Nerve-tubes with their 
contained protein threads, and nerve-cells with 
their contained and surrounding masses of 
changing protein substance, are the histologic 
elements of which the nervous system is built 
up. These elements are put together by means 
of the peripheral terminations of the nerve-tubes 
—plexuses of fibres, formed of the essential 
nerve-substance, that are continuous with one 
another, and nerve-centers, or ganglions. This 
arrangement of the nervous system is minutely 
described; also the position and office of the 



29 
1 'medulla oblongata," or enlarged termination of 
the spinal cord, lying within the skull; also the 
two great bi-lobed ganglia, which in man form 
the chief mass of the brain — the "cerebellum" 
and the "cerebrum." 

FUNCTIONS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 

The initial inquiry is, how the nervous sys- 
tem serves as at once the agent by which mo- 
tions are liberated and the agent by which mo- 
tions are co-ordinated. Three things have to be 
explained: 1. What are the causes which on 
appropriate occasions determine the nervous 
system to set up motion? 2. By what process 
does it liberate the insensible motion locked up 
in certain tissues, and cause its transformation 
into sensible motion? 3. How does it adjust 
sensible motions into those combinations, sim- 
ultaneous and successive, needful for efficient 
action on the external world? These questions 
cover the whole of the functions of the nerv- 
ous system with which we are directly con- 
cerned. 

The functions of the nervous centers may be 
classified, approximately, as co-ordinations that 
are simple, compound and doubly compound. 

The centers in which molecular motion is lib- 
erated, are also the centers in which it is co-or- 
dinated; and the successively higher and larger 
centers which evolve successively larger quanti- 
ties of molecular motion, are also centers in 
which successively more complex co-ordinations 
are effected. 



30 

There are conditions essential to nervous action, 
one of which is, continuity of nerve-substance. 
lit nee. one of the conditions to nervous action 
is. absence of much pressure. It is a familiar 
truth, also, that nerves and nerve- centers act 
only so long as they are furnished with those 
needful materials which the blood vessels bring 
them. 

The author then treats of nervous phenomena 
as phenomena of consciousness. Feeling is the 
subjective correlate of that which we know ob- 
jectively as nervous action. 

The more complex feelings conform to the 
same general laws to which the simpler feelings 
conform. In this regard, emotions come in the 
same category with sensations, except that emo- 
tions are of far more involved natures than sen- 
sations, and imply the co-operation of extremely 
intricate nervous structures. 

That which distinguishes Psychology from 
the sciences on which it rests, is, that each of its 
propositions takes account both of the connect- 
ed internal phenomena and of the connected ex- 
ternal phenomena to which they refer. 

Of the substance of mind, considered as the 
something of which all particular states of mind 
are modifications, we are in absolute ignorance. 

The proximate components of mind are of two 
broadly contrasted kinds— feelings, and the re- 
lations between feelings. Feelings of different 
orders cohere with one another less strongly 
than do feelings of the same order. 



31 

Discussing the relativity of the relations be- 
tween feelings, Mr. Spencer, after dwelling upon 
the many casts in which the ideas and mental 
impressions concerning external objects differ 
from each other, comes to the conclusion that 
the relations of co-existence, of sequence, and of 
difference, as we know them, do not obtain be- 
yond consciousness. 

In the General Synthesis, the author treats of 
the correspondence between life and mind. The 
lowest life is found in environments of unusual 
simplicity. The correspondence between the in- 
ternal changes and external relations is at once 
direct and homogeneous. The correspondence 
extends in space and time, and increases in spe- 
ciality, in generality, and in complexity. These 
correspondences must also be co-ordinated and 
integrated. 

In the Special Synthesis, the nature of intel- 
ligence is considered. 

The two ureal classes of vital actions, called 
Physiology and Psychology, are broadly distin- 
guished in this, that while the one includes both 
simultaneous and successive changes, the other 
includes successive changes only. The briefest 
introspection makes it clear that the actions 
constituting thought occur, not together, but 
one after another. 

As the external phenomena responded to be- 
come greater in number and more complicated 
in kind, the variety and rapidity of the changes 
to which the common center of communication 



32 

is subject, must increase — there must result an 
unbroken series of these nervous changes, the 
subjective face of which is what we call a coher- 
ent consciousness. 

Hence the progress of the correspondence be- 
tween the organism and its environment neces- 
sitates a gradual reduction of the sensorial 
changes to a succession; and, by so doing, 
evolves a distinct consciousness — a conscious- 
ness that becomes higher as the succession be- 
comes more rapid and the correspondence more 
complete. 

All life, whether physical or psychical, being 
the combination of changes in correspondence 
with external co-existences and sequences, it re- 
sults that if the changes constituting psychical 
life occur in succession, -the law of their succes- 
sion must be the law of their correspondence. 

Keflex action, under its simplest form, is the 
sequence of a single contraction upon a single 
irritation. 

In instinct the correspondence is between in- 
ner and outer relations that are very simple or 
general; in reason the correspondence is between 
inner and outer relations that are complex, or 
special, or abstract, or infrequent. 

The experience hypothesis furnishes an ade- 
quate solution. The genesis of instinct, the de- 
velopment of memory and of reason out of it, 
and the consolidation of rational actions and in- 
ferences into instinctive ones, are alike explica- 
ble on the single principle, that the cohesion be- 






33 
tween psychical states is proportionate to the 
frequency with which the relation between the 
answering external phenomena has been repeat- 
ed in experience. 

The Will. — The development of what we call 
Will is but another aspect of the general pro- 
cess which has been considered. Memory, rea- 
son, and feeling simultaneously arise as the au- 
tomatic actions become complex, infrequent, and 
hesitating; and Will, arising at the same time, 
is necessitated by the same conditions. 

In Part V, entitled "Physical Synthesis," a 
more elaborate statement is made of the genesis 
and function of the nervous structures. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE NEW PHILOSOPHY CONTINUED — SUBJECTIVE 
PSYCHOLOGY. 

The author begins with the most highly in- 
volved intellectual phenomena; those involved in 
compound, quantitive reasoning; proceeding 
thence to the less complex processes — imperfect 
and simple quantitive reasoning; quantitive rea- 
soning in general; perfect qualitative reasoning; 
imperfect qualitative reasoning; and reasoning 
in general. 

The conclusion arrived at is, that reasoning, 
whether exhibited in a simple inference or in a 
chain of such inferences, is the indirect estab- 
lishment of a definite relation between two 
things; and that the achievement of this is by 
one or many steps, each of which consists in the 
establishment of a definite relation between two 
definite relations. 

Reasoning presupposes classification, and clas- 
sification presupposes reasoning. They are dif- 
ferent sides of the same thing — the necessary 
complements of each other. The idea underly- 
ing all classification is that of similarity. 
(34) 



35 

Likeness of relations is the intuition common 
to reasoning and classification. 

Perception. — Perception is an establishment 
of specific relations among states of conscious- 
ness. — [Principles of Psychology, Sec. 354 a. 

The perception by which any object is known 
as such or such, is always an acquired percep- 
tion. Most of the elements contained in the 
cognition of an observed object, are not known 
immediately through the senses, but are medi- 
ately known by instantaneous ratiocination. 
Before a visual impression can become a percep- 
tion of the thing causing it, there must be add- 
ed in thought those attributes in size, solidity, 
quality of surf; , which, when united, con- 

stitute the nature of the thing as it is known to 
us. Though tl m to be given in the vis- 

ual impression, it is demonstrable that they are 
not so, but have to be reached by inference. 
And the act of knowing them is termed acquired 
perception, to signify the fact that while really 
mediate, it appears to be immediate. 

The laws relating to the perception of space, 
time, motion, and resistance are examined, as 
well as the law of perception in general. 

Perception is more fully defined as a discerning 
of the relation or relations between states of con- 
sciousness, partly presentative and partly repre- 
sentative; which states of consciousness must be 
themselves known to the extent involved in the 
knowledge of their relations. Under its sim- 
plest form (a form, however, of which the adult 



36 
mind has few, if any, examples) perception is 
the consciousness of a single relation. 

As a final result of this analysis of the intel- 
lectual faculties, it is found that all mental action 
whatever is definable as the continuous differen- 
tiation and integration of states of consciousness. 

Passing from the foregoing special analysis to 
a general analysis, the laws relating to the con- 
nection of the subjective and the objective, or 
the ego and the non-ego , are next examined. 

The author here enters into an elaborate and 
exhaustive examination of the various phases of 
idealism, as advocated by Berkeley, Hume, and 
others. These he directly antagonizes. He 
does not, however, indorse the common or "vul- 
gar" conception in regard to the external world, 
which he calls "Crude Realism." He advocates 
a compromise system, which he designates 
"Transfigured Realism." 

" While some objective existence, manifested under 
some conditions, remains as the final necessity of 
thought, there does not remain the implication that 
this existence and these conditions are more to us than 
the unknown correlatives of our feelings and the rela- 
tions among our feelings. The Realism we are com- 
mitted to is one which simply asserts objective exist- 
ence as separate from, and independent of, subjective 
existence. But it affirms neither that any one mode 
of this objective existence is in reality that which it 
seems, nor that the connections among its modes are 
objectively what they seem."-[Ibid., Sec. 472. 

It is stated elsewhere (Sec. 470) , that the ego 
is the principle of continuity forming into a 



37 

whole the faint states of consciousness, mould- 
ing and modifying them by some unknown en- 
ergy, while the non-ego is the principle of conti- 
nuity holding together the independent aggre- 
gate of vivid states of consciousness. 

Certain corollaries follow from this general 
analysis. 

Before proceeding to these, a distinction is 
taken between cognitions and feelings, and both 
are classified. 

Cognitions into presentative cognitions, pre- 
sentative-representative cognitions, representa- 
tive, and re-representative cognitions. 

In like manner. Feelings are classified into 
preventative, presentative-representative, repre- 
sentative, and re-representati\ 

Development of Conceptions.— Only after 
there have been received many experiences 
which differ in their kinds but present some re- 
lation in common, can the first step be taken 
aid the conception of a truth higher in gen- 
erality than these different experiences them- 
Belvi 

In the course of human progress general ideas 
can arise only as fast as social conditions render 
experiences more multitudinous and varied; 
while at the same time these social conditions 
themselves presuppose some general ideas. 
Each step toward more general ideas is instru- 
mental in bringing about better and wider social 
co-operations; so rendering the experiences still 
more numerous and varied, more complex, and 



38 

derived from a wider area. And then, when the 
correlative experiences have become organized, 
there arises the possibility of ideas yet higher 
in generality, and a further social evolution. 

The primitive man has little experience which 
cultivates the consciousness of what we call 
truth. Credulity is the inevitable concomitant 
of such a state. 

Criticism can obtain only as fast as the intel- 
lectual powers in general develop. 

In the lower stages of mental evolution imag- 
ination is feeble. 

The belief that superstition implies active im- 
agination, and that the decline of superstition 
results when the flights of imagination become 
restrained, shows a confusion of thought. This 
confusion has been fostered by the habitual an- 
tithesis of prose and poetry, fact and fiction. 
The mental evolution which accompanies civili- 
zation, makes imagination more vivid, more ex- 
act, more comprehensive, and more excursive. 

A distinction is made between reminiscent im- 
agination and constructive imagination. 

Language of the Emotions. — Every feeling, 
peripheral or central — sensational or emotional 

is the concomitant of a nervous disturbance 
and resulting nervous discharge, that has on the 
body both a special effect and a general effect. 
The general effect is this: 

" The molecular motion disengaged in any nerve- 
centre by any stimulus, tends ever to flow along lines 
of least resistance throughout the nervous system, ex- 



39 

citing other nerve-centres, and setting up other dis- 
charges. The feelings of all orders, moderate as well 
as strong, which from instant to instant arise in con- 
sciousness, are the correlatives of nerve-waves contin- 
ually being generated and continually reverberating 
throughout the nervous system— the perpetual nervous 
discharge constituted by these perpetually generated 
waves, affecting both the viscera and the muscles, vol- 
untary and involuntary." 

Every particular kind of feeling, sensational 
or emotional, being located in a specialized ner- 
vous structure that has relations to special parts 
of the body, tends to produce on the body an ef- 
fect that is special. 

Sociality and Sympathy.— The social in- 
stinct is observed in the lower orders of exist- 
ence. 

When to the general sociality of gregarious 
creatures there come to be added the special so- 
cialities of a permanent sexual relation, and of 
a double parental relation, sympathy develops 
more rapidly. 

The genesis and explanation of egoistic senti- 
ments is given, and of altruistic sentiments, as 
connected with the social system. The egoistic 
sentiment is partly inherited, partly acquired, 
being associated with the ideas of possession 
and enjoyment. 

The altruistic sentiments are the feelings 
which find satisfaction in the well-being of all, 
and which are adjusted to a fundamental un- 
changing condition to social welfare. 

There can be no altruistic feeling but what 



40 

arises by sympathetic excitement of a corre- 
sponding egoistic feeling. 

The volume closes with a chapter on the aes- 
thetic sentiments. 

The aesthetic activities in general may be ex- 
pected to play an increasing part in human life 
as evolution advances. While the forms of art 
will be such as yield pleasurable exercise to the 
simpler faculties, they will in a greater degree 
than now, appeal to the higher emotions. 

In the later editions of Spencer's Psychology, 
the work has been not only enlarged, but in some 
respects re-cast; so that, as he himself says in 
one of his prefaces, it may be said it is 
more a new work than a new edition; being 
more than twice as large as its predecessor. 
How far these changes and additions may have 
been made for the purpose of obviating the force 
of adverse criticisms, it is not easy to determine; 
but that some of them were, is sufficiently man- 
ifest. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE NEW PHILOSOPHY COXTIN'UED — SPENCER'S SO- 
CIOLOGY. 

Having treated of Organic Evolution, Mr. 
Spencer now comes to what he terms Super-Or- 
ganic Evolution. 

That form of Super-Organic Evolution which 
human societies exhibit in their growths, struc- 
tures, functions and products, is now to be con- 
sidered. The phenomena to be dealt with are 
grouped under the general title of Sociology. 

" Every society displays phenomena that are ascrib- 
able to the characters of its units and to the conditions 
under which they exist." 

These factors or conditions are extrinsic, or 
external, and intrinsic, or internal. 

The extrinsic factors are climate, surface, con- 
figuration of surface, vegetal productions, Flora 
and Fauna, etc. 

The intrinsic factors are the physical charac- 
ters, the degree of intelligence, and the tenden- 
cies of thought, etc., of the individual. 

In addition to these, there are the progressive 
modifications of the environment. 

(41) 



42 

The average primitive man was somewhat in- 
ferior to the average civilized man in size and 
physical structure. 

The primitive intellect, relatively simpler, de- 
velops more rapidly and earlier reaches its 
limit. It is characterized by an absence of gen- 
eralized knowledge, and a readiness to accept 
any explanation, however absurd, of surround- 
ing phenomena. 

In examining the ideas of the primitive man, 
it is seen that 

" By minds beginning to generalize, shadows must be 
conceived as existences appended to, but capable of 
separation from, material things." 

The echo was supposed to come from an invis- 
ible man who dwelt in the place from which the 
echo came; from one who had passed into an in- 
visible state, or who would become invisible 
when sought. 

Ghosts. — These originated from experiences 
in dreams. Dream-activities were accepted as 
real activities. The dreamer had seen his other 
self, or double, and he had seen the doubles of 
his companions. 

"This belief in another self belonging to him, har- 
monizes with all those illustrations of duality fur- 
nished by things around, and equally harmonizes with 
those multitudinous cases in which things pass from 
visible to invisible states, and back again." 

The other self, or double, was supposed to 
have departed in cases of swoon, apoplexy, cata- 
lepsy, ecstasy, and other forms of insensibility. 



43 

In death, the double had gone away for a longer 
time, but still was expected back. This was the 
origin of the beliefs in resurrection. 

" Let us note the still existing form of this belief. 
It differs from the primitive belief less than we sup- 
pose." 

The author refers to the saying in the creed: 
11 By one man sin entered into the world and 
death by sin, " as implying that death is not a 
natural event, 

"Just as clearly as do the savage creeds which ascribe 
death to some difference of opinion among the gods, 
or disregard of their injunctions." 

The facts are referred to that in the English 
state prayer-book, 

"Bodily resurrection is unhesitatingly asserted, and 
poems of more modern date contain detailed descrip- 
tions of the dead rising again. n 

Also thai a prominent English bishop had re- 
cently preached against cremation as tending to 
undermine the faith of mankind in a bodily res- 
urrection. — [Principles of Sociology, Sec. 90. 

'•And now observe, finally, the kind of modification 
through which the civilized belief in resurrection is 
made partially unlike the savage belief. There is no 
abandonment of it; the anticipated event is simply 
postponed. Supernatural ism, gradually discredited by 
science, transfers its supernatural occurrences to re- 
moter places in time or space. As believers in special 
creations suppose them to happen, not where we are, 
but in distant parts of the world; as miracles, admitted 
not to take place now, are said to have taken place 
during a past dispensation; so reanimation of the body, 
no longer expected as immediate, is expected at an in- 



44 

definitely far off time. The idea of death differentiates 
slowly from the idea of temporary insensibility. At 
first, revival is looked for in a few hours, or in a few 
days, or in a few years; and gradually, as death be- 
comes more definitely conceived, revival is not looked 
tor till the end of all things."— [Ibid. 

Among savage races the implication beyond 
doubt is, that the duplicate is at first conceived 
as no less material than its original. The Greek 
conception of ghosts seems to have been of an 
allied kind. 

" Nor do the conceptions which prevailed among the 
Hebrews appear to have been different. We find as- 
cribed, now substantiality, now insubstantiality, and 
now something between the tw r o. The resuscitated 
Christ was described as having wounds that admitted 
of tactual examination, and yet as passing unimpeded 
through a closed door or through walls."— [Prin. of So- 
ciology, Sec. 93. 

"Belief in reanimation implies belief in a subse- 
quent life. The primitive man, incapable of deliberate 
thought, and without language fit for deliberate think- 
ing, has to conceive this as best he may. Hence a cha- 
os of ideas concerning the after-state of the dead." — 
[Prin.of Soc.,Sec. 99. 

The second life is originally conceived as re- 
peating the first in conduct, sentiments, and 
ethical code. 

Such traits as we may perceive of the after- 
life of the departed Greeks, under its ethical as- 
pect, conform to those of Greek daily life. 

41 Nor in the ascribed moral standard of the Hebrew 
other-life do we fail to see a kindred similarity, if a less 
complete one. Subordination is still the supreme vir- 
tue. If this is displayed, wrong acts are condoned, or 



45 

are not supposed to be wrong. The obedient Abraham 
is applauded for his readiness to sacrifice Isaac. There 
is no sign of blame for so readily accepting the mur- 
derous suggestion of his dream as a dictate from 
heaven."— [Prin. of Soc, Sec. 107. 

The genesis of the ideas of the other world, 
and of heaven and hell, is traced from the ideas 
of another life and of the condition of departed 
spirits. 

From ghosts to gods the transition is natural 
and easy. Ancestor-worship preceded, or rather 
accompanied, this transition. Much attention 
is given to idol-worship and fetichism, which, by 
mythological writers generally, is thought to be 
the earliest form of religion. Mr. Spencer, how- 
r. holds ghost and ancestor- worship to be the 
first stage, and fetichism the second. 

Akin to these forms of superstition, is the 
worship of Nature; particularly in the form of 
sun, moon and stars. 

The foregoing is given as the data of Sociolo- 
gy. The author now comes to what he terms 
the inductions of Sociology. 

The question is asked. What is Society? And 
the answer is, a Society is an organism. 

Analogies are traced between Societies and 
other organic structures. These analogies are 
found in Social Growth, Social Structures, So- 
cial Functions, Systems of Organs, the Sustain- 
ing System, the Distributing System, and the 
Regulating System. 

The growth of Societies reminds us, by its 
degree, of growth in living bodies. 



46 

" The implication is, that by integrations, direct and 
indirect, there have in course of time been produced 
social aggregates a million times in size the aggregates 
which alone existed in the remote past."— [Prin. of 
Soc., Sec. 224. 

Scattered over many regions there are minute 
hordes— still extant samples of the primordial 
type of society. 

"In Societies as in living bodies, increase of mass is 
habitually accompanied by increase of structure. . . . 
Changes of structure cannot occur without changes of 
functions/' 

Ceremonial and Political Institutions are con- 
sidered. 

The earliest kind of government, the most 
general kind of government, and the government 
which is ever spontaneously recommencing, is 
the government of ceremonial observance. 

11 That ceremonial restraint, preceding other forms 
of restraint, continues ever to be the most widely dif- 
fused form of restraint, we are shown by such facts as 
that in all intercourse between members of each socie- 
ty, the decisively governmental actions are usually 
prefaced by this government of observances."— [Prin. 
of Soc, Sec. 343. 

Political Institutions are preceded by po- 
litical organization. 

" The mere gathering of individuals into a group 
does not constitute them a Society. A Society, in the 
sociological sense, is formed only when, besides juxta- 
position, there is co-operation. , . . But co-operation 
implies organization. . . . There is a spontaneous co- 
operation which grows up without thought during the 
pursuit of private ends; and there is a co-operation 



47 

which, consciously devised, implies distinct recogni- 
tion of public ends."— [Prin. of Soc, Sec. 440, 441. 

The origin and growth of political organiza- 
tions are traced, as illustrative of the doctrine of 
evolution. Social types and constitutions and 
social metamorphoses are examined; also the do- 
mestic relations. 

The primitive relations of the sexes — Exoga- 
my, Endogamy, Promiscuity, Polyandry, Polygy- 
ny, Monogamy, are all carefully considered. 
Mr. Spencer's convictions appear to be in favor 
of monogamy. 

3TICAL INSTITUTIONS. 

The Religious [dea. - a Rightly to trace the evo- 
lution of Ecclesiastical Institutions, we must know 
whence came the ideas and sentiments implied by 
them . Are these innate, or are they derived ? 

44 There is clear proof that minds which have from 
infancy been cut off by bodily defects from intercourse 
with the minds of adults, are devoid of religious ideas. 
The implication is that civilized men have no in- 
nate tendency to form religious ideas; and this impli- 
cation is supported by proofs that among various sav- 
age tribes religious ideas do not exist." — [Prin. of Soc, 
Sec. 583. 

Since, then, religious ideas have not that su- 
pernatural origin commonly alleged, how do they 
originate? 

Mr. Spencer thinks they originate in ancestor- 
worship; giving many illustrations in support of 
his theory. The belief in ghosts is considered, 
also, as having originated at or about the same 
time, and as accompanying ancestor-worship. 
Among savage races, the functions of the medi- 



48 
cine-man and priest were closely related. The 
eldest male descendant was originally the quasi - 
priest, upon whom devolved the duty of propi- 
tiating the ghosts of ancestors and of prominent 
chiefs. This priest was frequently, also, the 
ruler. Thus arose the first connection of Church 
and State. 

As society developed the priests became segre- 
gated and co-ordinated into a separate class. 
They contributed in forming the social bond, 
and sometimes exercised functions of a civil and 
military character. 

Thus, by a continuous process of evolution, 
we arrive at the ecclesiastical institutions of the 
present day. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE NEW PHILOSOPHY CONTINUED — PRINCIPLES 

OF ETHICS WORK ON EDUCATION — 

ESSAYS, ETC. 

PRINCIPLES OF ETHIl 

The original work, " Data of Ethics/ 1 was af- 
terward enlarged into "Principles of Ethics," 
consisting of 

Parti. The Data of Kthi 

Part IT. The Inductions of Ethic 

Part III. The Kthics of Individual Life. 

PABT I. -Till. DAI A OF ETHICS. 

Conduct in General, and the Evolution of 
Conduct. — Conduct is a whole; ami, in a sense, 
it is an organic whole— an aggregate of interde- 
pendent actions performed by an organism. 
That division or aspect of conduct with which 
Ethics deals, is a part of this organic whole — a 
part having its components inextricably bound 
up with the rest. 

Conduct, in its full acceptation, comprehends 
all adjustment of acts to ends. A large part of 
ordinary conduct is ethically indifferent. — [Prin- 
ciples of Ethics, Sec. 1. 

(49) 



50 

M Ethics has for its subject matter, that form which 
universal conduct assumes during the last stages of its 
evolution— stages displayed by the highest type of be- 
ing when he is forced, by increase of numbers, to live 
more and more in presence of his fellows."— [Prin. of 
Ethics, Sec. 7. 

Good and Bad Conduct.— "The entanglement of 
social relations is such, that men's actions often sim- 
ultaneously affect the welfares of self, of offspring, 
and of fellow-citizens. Hence results confusion in 
judging of actions as good and bad; since actions well 
lifted to achieve ends of one order, may prevent ends 
of the other orders from being achieved."— [Prin. of 
Ethics, Sec 8. 

Always acts are called good or bad according 
as they are well or ill adjusted to ends. Leav- 
ing other ends aside, we regard as good the con- 
duct furthering self-preservation, and as bad the 
conduct tending to self-destruction. Parental 
conduct is called good or bad as it approaches or 
falls short of the ideal result, of a progeny, need- 
ful in number and preserved to maturity, who 
are then fit for a life that is complete in fullness 
and duration. Lastly, in an associated state, 
that form of conduct is most emphatically 
termed good, which is such that life may be com- 
pleted in each and in his offspring, not only 
Without preventing completion of it in others, 
but with furtherance of it in others.— [Ibid. 

Taking into account immediate and remote 
effects on all persons, the good is universally the 
pleasurable.— [Ibid., Sec. 10. 

Ways of Judging Conduct — The Physical 
—The Biological— The Psychological— The 



51 
Sociological View. — Mr. Spencer claims that 
all the various ethical theories are characterized 
either by entire absence of the idea of causa- 
tion, or by inadequate presence of it. — [Prin. of 
Ethics, Sec. 17. 

"The school of morals properly to be considered as 
the still extant representative of the most ancient 
school, is that which recognizes no other rule of con- 
duct than the alleged will of God. It originates with 
the savage, whose only restraint beyond fear of his 
fellow-man is fear of an ancestrai spirit; and whose 
notion of moral duty, as distinguished from his no- 
tion of social prudence, arises from this fear."— [Ibid. 
18. 

The pure intuitionists hold that moral percep- 
tions are innate in the original sense that men 
have been divinely endowed with moral facul- 
ties. Even the utilitarian school is very far 
from complete recognition of natural causation. 
Conduct, according to its theory, is to be esti- 
mated by observation of lvsults.— [Tbid., Sec. 21. 

The PHYSICAL view is, that there is an entire 
correspondence between evolution as physically 
defined and moral evolution. 

The BIOLOGICAL view is. that the moral man 
is one whose functions are all discharged in de- 
grees duly adjusted to the conditions of exist- 
ence. The performance of every function is, in 
a sense, a moral obligation.— [Prin. of Ethics, 
Sees. 30, 31. 

The PSYCHOLOGICAL view is, that 
"The pleasures and pains w hieh the moral sentiments 
originate, will, like bodily pleasures and pains, become 
incentives and deterrants so adjusted in their strengths 



52 

to the needs, that the moral conduct will be the nat- 
ural conduct."— [Ibid., Sec. 47. 

The sociological view is, that the highest 
life is reached only when, besides helping to 
complete one another's lives by specified reci- 
procities of aid, men otherwise help to com- 
plete one another's lives.— [Prin. of Ethics, Sec. 
55. 

Egoism and Altruism. — Egoism comes before 
Altruism. The acts required for continued self- 
preservation, including the enjoyment of benefits 
achieved by such acts, are the first requisites to 
universal welfare. 

Altruism, defined as being all action which, in 
the normal course of things, benefits others in- 
stead of benefiting self, is no less essential than 
egoism. Self-sacrifice is no less primordial than 
self-preservation. 

Though the principles are seemingly in con- 
flict, yet there is a mode of conciliation. 

"In its ultimate form, altruism will be the achieve- 
ment of gratification through sympathy with those 
gratifications of others which are mainly produced by 
their activities of all kinds successively carried on — 
sympathetic gratification which costs the receiver no- 
thing, but is a gratis addition to his egoistic gratifica- 
tions."— [Prin. of Ethics, Sec. 97. 

Such a view as has been set forth 
u Will not be agreeable to those who lament th6 
spreading disbelief in eternal damnation; nor to those 
who follow the apostle of brute force in thinking that 
because the rule of the strong hand was once good, it 
is good for all time to come; nor to those whose rever- 



53 

ence for one who told them to put up the sword, is 
shown by using the sword to spread his doctrine 
among heathens. 

"From the ten thousand priests of the religion of 
love, who are silent when the nation is moved by the 
religion of hate, will come no sign of assent."— [Ibid., 
Sec. 9a 

Nevertheless, the author does not think it 
unreasonable to believe that it will eventually 
be acted up 

SPENCER'S WORK OH EDUCATION, 

Wit at Knowledge is Most Worth? — The 
ornamental comes before the useful. The com- 
parative worths of different kinds of knowledge 
have be< n larcely even discussed — much 

- discussed in a methodic way, with definite 
results. 

The ultima! f value of any branch of 

knowledge . is, of what use is it in teaching how 
to live?— how to minister to self-preservation — 
how to secure the necessaries of life — how to 
rear and discipline offering- how to maintain 
proper social and political relations, and how 
to be best fitted for the leisure part of life, to be 
devoted to the gratification of the tastes and 
feelii 

For all these purposes Mr. Spencer deems 
cultivation of the sciences indispensable. He 
does not concede that mental discipline requires 

*Xote.— This synopsis is confined to that part of the 
M Principles of Ethics" entitled " Data of Ethics," the 
fundamental principles of his doctrine of morals 
having been therein stated. 



54 

any different course of study from that necessary 
to prepare for the activities of life. 

Intellectual Education. — The once univer- 
sal practice of learning by rote, is daily falling 
more into discredit. Also, the nearly allied 
teaching by rules. The particulars first, and 
then the generalization, is the new method. 
The characteristic of the new method is, an in- 
creasing conformity to the methods of Nature. 
Alike in its order and in its methods, as Pesta- 
lozzi annunciated, education must conform to 
the natural process of mental evolution. We 
should proceed from the simple to the complex, 
from concrete to abstract, and from the empir- 
ical to the rational. Furthermore, education 
should be a process of self-instruction. 

Moral Education. — Eight conceptions of 
cause and effect are early formed; and by fre- 
quent and constant experience are eventually 
rendered definite and complete. Proper conduct 
in life is much better guaranteed when the good 
and evil consequences of actions are rationally 
understood, than when they are merely believed 
on authority. 

Physical Education. — To conform the regi- 
men of the nursery and the school to the estab- 
lished truths of modern science — this is the de- 
sideratum. 

spencer's essays and other writings. 
Mr. Spencer's writings have been very volumi- 
nous. Besides his philosophical and miscella- 



55 

neous works, he has made contributions, 
from time to time, to various English maga- 
zines. 

It is not within the purview of these articles 
to speak of his writings, other than those of 
which a synopsis has been given. 

Suffice it to say, that no one will for a mo- 
ment hesitate to accord to him the highest rank 
among those who have contributed to the ad- 
vancement of science and have enlarged the tield 
of philosophic thought. 

Mr. Spencer appears to have passed through, 
and to have exemplified in his own person, the 
thr< mental evolution described by 

Comte as the theological, the metaphysical, and 
the positive. 

The firsl is to be seen in " Social Stat- 

ic- ."* written when Mr. Spencer was thirty years 
of age. In this work he writes of "< tod's World," 
of the "Divine Idea." of the "Divine Rule,"of 
the "Divine Arrangements/ 1 of the "creative 
purj of the "Creator's silent command," 

etc.. etc. He refers in high terms to the Christ- 
ian religion, using Language in marked contrast 
with that employed in his later writings. He 
has also an entire chapter on '"The Moral Sense"; 
something which appears strangely to have 
dropped out of the "Data of Ethics." 

In Social Statics he speaks of the moral sense 
as generating moral intuitions [p. 3D]. In the 
Data of Ethics he antagonizes the intuitionists, 
who "hold that moral perceptions are innate — 



56 
that men have boon divinely endowed with moral 
faculties." 

In Social Statics, human rights are primarily 
derived from the axiom that human happiness 
is the divine will [p. 173], and that the duty of 
man is to conform to the will of God. In the Data 
of Ethics, the author, speaking of the ancient 
school of morals/' that which recognizes no oth- 
er rule of conduct than the alleged will of God," 
says it originates with the savage. 

In the first, the theological state, God was 
ruling the world in accordance with divine ar- 
rangements. 

In the second, the metaphysical state, we have 
the Unknowable as the Unknown Force, the In- 
scrutable Power, behind all phenomena. 

In the third, the positive state, the Unknowa- 
ble is an abstract, philosophical conception. 

The "Unknowable" was the entity of the met- 
aphysical state, which was substituted for the 
divinity of the theological state. It was the "in- 
termediaire" spoken of by Comte, which con- 
ducts one from the theological state to the posi- 
tive state. 

In the positive state of thought, Mr. Spencer 
uses the term "Nature" to designate the "Un- 
knowable" or "Ultimate Cause of things." Na- 
ture is now the great Artificer, and the philos- 
opher deems it sufficient to study her manifesta- 
tions. 

The progressive character of Mr. Spencer's 
thought is further illustrated by one of his very 



57 

latest utterances — his reply to Mr. Balfour's 
"Foundations of Belief [1895]. Mr. Spencer 
there speaks of the Universe as being without 
conceivable beginning or end, and without intel- 
ligible purp 

This is his last and most positive state of 
thought. 

In the theological state, intelligence was as- 
cribed to the Power behind phenomena. 

In the metaphysical state, we were cautioned 
against ascribing to that Power either intelli- 
gence <>r the want of intelligence. 

In the positive state, it is clearly implied that 
the same Power is without intelligible purpose. 
In this state, there is no Divine Will, conformity 
to which was so strongly enjoined in "Social 
Stati 



Having thus taken a complete survey of the 
philosophy of Mr. Spencer, we are now prepared 
for an interview with his critics. 



CHAPTER IX. 

CRITICISM BY MALCOLM GUTHRIE. " 

The most elaborate criticism of Mr. Spencer's 
philosophy was made by Malcolm Guthrie, in a 
volume of nearly 500 closely printed pages, enti- 
tled "On Mr. Spencer's Unification of Knowl- 
edge." [London, Truebner # & Co., 1882. 

In his preface Mr. Guthrie says: 

" In so far as Mr. Spencer's work is viewed as an at- 
tempt to show the a priori reasonableness of evolution 
by gradual development, already established in various 
departments of science by a posteriori methods, it may 
be held to have accomplished its object; but in so far 
as it claims to have put together a fr&neifork )etf 
thought commensurate with all the sequences of the 
cosmos, it must be considered a disjointed structure, 
from which as yet several connected parts are missing. 
And it will be found that the deductive system which 
Mr. Spencer attempts is so mystical in its fundamental 
ideas, as well as so incomplete in its logical connec- 
tions, that, regarded as a system of philosophy, it is as 
vague as it is ill-constructed .... 

"The attempt to outrun the gradual growth of 
knowledge by filling in every hiatus with theoretical 
(58) 



59 

explanations, is a positive obstruction to the progress 

of science 

4, The writer is not in accord with Mr. Spencer in 
supposing that mysticism completes explanations par- 
tially effected by intelligible methods.'' 

Mr. Spencer has. according to Mr. Guthrie, 
six different methods for the unification of knowl- 
edge: the Mystical method, the Psychological 
method, the Physical method, the Metaphysical, 
the Supraphysical method, and the Symbolical 
method. 

1. Commenting on tne Mystical Method, 
Mr. Guthrie Bays: 

"In the book on the Knowable. the Unknowable is 
always presenting itself. It meets one at every turn, 
and each important term is a back-door into the Un- 
knowable." 



"The unification must be accomplished within the 
bounds of knowledge. If the unknowable is mixed up 
in it, over and beyond the known conditions— as a fac- 
tor, but a factor of unknown value— then, the whole 
organization or co-ordination of the sciences is vitiated 
and comes to naught." 

2. The Psychological Method. — The criti- 
cism on this portion of Mr. Spencer's endeavor 
to unify knowledge, is that it is vague and 
meaningless. 

3. The Metaphysical Method. — Comment- 
ing on Mr. Spencer's illustration of the piano, 
Mr. Guthrie says: 

"It seems to us that the process which Mr. Spencer 
here proposes, is not possible. . . . The only way to 
fuse the various ideas connected with a piano into the 



60 

required indefiniteness of general existence would be 
by fusing the piano itself into general existence by 
grinding it into dust, and then we have no idea of a pi- 
ano at all." 

The remarkable passage in Spencer referred 
to by Mr. Guthrie will here be given in full, 
with so much of the context as is essential. 

"How, then, must the sense of this something [that 
is conditioned in every thought] be constituted ? Evi- 
dently by combining successive concepts deprived of 
their limits and conditions. . '. . . 

"On thinking of a piano, there first rises in the im- 
agination its visual appearance, to which are in- 
stantly added [though by separate mental acts] the 
ideas of its remote sides and of its solid substance. A 
complete conception, however, involves the strings, the 
hammers, the pedals; and while successively adding 
these to the conception, the attributes first thought of 
lapse more or less completely out of consciousness. 
Nevertheless, the whole group constitutes a repre- 
sentation of the piano. Now, as in this case we form 
a definite concept of a special existence, by imposing 
limits and conditions in successive acts; so, in the con- 
verse case, by taking away the limits and conditions in 
successive acts, we form an indefinite notion of gen- 
eral existence. By fusing a series of states of con- 
sciousness, in each of which, as it arises, the limita- 
tions and conditions are abolished, there is produced a 
consciousness of something unconditioned." — [First 
Prin., Sec. 26. 

Elsewhere Mr. Spencer tells us that the Un- 
knowable is unthinkable; but here he shows us 
how to think of something unknowable, giving 
full directions. Taking the piano as an illus- 
tration, he explains that after having formed a 



61 

complete concept of the piano, in order to get 
the idea of its general existence — the idea of an 
unconditioned piano — we must take away one by 
one its limits and conditions. Very well; let us 
remove from thought first the pedals, then the 
hammers, strings and dampers. Going further, 
let us remove from thought the solid substance 
of the piano, and, as a last step in the process, 
its visual appearance. What now remains of 
the piano? One would say, nothing whatever. 
But according to the author of First Principles, 
there still remains to be thought of, an indefi- 
nitely existing — an unconditioned piano. 

The pedals, the strings, the hammers, etc., are 
parts of the piano; and that all the parts of the 
instrument, as well as the solid substance of 
which it is composed, can be taken away, and 
any thing be left, is a doctrine to which I cannot 
subscribe. All the parts are equal to the whole. 
When, therefore, all the parts are taken away, 
the entire object is gone. 

Much has been said concerning the "noume- 
non," as distinguished from the phenomenon; 
and since the noumenon is one of the many 
names which Mr. Spencer gives to the Unknow- 
able, it is manifest that the noumenal piano is 
what he supposes to remain after the phenome- 
nal piano is gone. The doctrine of the noume- 
non is that the real object, the "Ding an sich," 
is the noumenon, of which phenomenon is the 
manifestation. 

Let us look into this: 



62 

Take a piece of ice. There is the phenomenon 
ice, and, we will say, the noumenon ice. Now, 
let the ice be melted into water. The phenome- 
non ice is gone. It exists no longer. What has 
become of the noumenon ice? Will it be said 
it has gone into the water? But water is a phe- 
nomenon itself, and must have its own noume- 
non. If the noumenon ice has gone into the 
noumenon water, then the water has, in this 
case, two noumena, or a double noumenon. 

Again: Let the water be decomposed into oxy- 
gen and hydrogen gas. Where, now, is or are the 
noumenon or noumena of the water? Has it or 
have they been cut in two, and has part gone in- 
to the one gas and part into the other? But 
each of these gases is supposed to have its own 
noumenon. 

Take another illustration : 

Take the case of a tree: It has, let us say, its 
noumenon. Now let the tree be felled, the top 
cut into fuel and burned, and the trunk sawed 
into boards, and used in the construction of a 
house. Where, now, is the noumenon of the 
tree, or the noumenal tree? Was it divided, and 
did a part go into the fuel and thence into ashes, 
and the other part into the boards and thence 
into the house? Does every board have its 
noumenon? Does also each of the nails that 
fasten the boards have its noumenon? The 
house, also, must it not have its own noumenon? 

Is tlni noumenon a reality, or is it a figment 
of the imagination — a mere philosophico-meta- 



G3 

physical abstraction — a term without significa- 
tion? 

If the noumenon does not continue to exist af- 
ter the phenomenon has disappeared, then what 
use has the noumenon subserved during its 
existence? Will it be said that it formed the 
base or substratum of the phenomenon? But 
if the phenomenon could disappear without the 
aid of the noumenon, why could it not appear 
and continue to exist without the aid of the nou- 
menon? 

There is in the " Dictionnaire Universal" of 
Larousse, a beautiful passage describing the 
heaven (the firmament) of the peasant and the 
heaven of the astronomer; and closing with the 
statement that while the heaven of the peasant 
is phenomenal, the heaven of the astronomer is 
noumenal. C'Le ciel de l'astronome est le ciel 
noumenal.") 

It is a fine piece of rhetoric, but as an illus- 
tration it is entirely inapplicable. The heaven 
of the astronomer is also a phenomenon; it is, in 
fact, the same as the heaven of the peasant; on- 
ly, better known. 

The noumenon is not the phenomenon better 
known. Neither is it matter; nor is it claimed 
to be such. Matter, in its various forms, makes 
itself known to our senses, and becomes the sub- 
ject of scientific investigation. But the noume- 
non is conceded to be unknowable. Matter is 
something — the noumenon is nothing. 

John Stuart Mill says: 



64 

"Noumena, if they exist, are wholly unknowable by 
us except phenomenally, through their effects on us."— 
[Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, 
Vol. II, p. 181. 

To return to our critic. Mr. Guthrie contin- 
ues his criticism as follows: 

4. The Physical Method. — After examin- 
ing this method somewhat in detail, he concludes 
that "from the Conservation of Energy, and from 
the doctrine of the Conservation of the Attract- 
ive Forces, and of the Indestructibility of Mat- 
ter (whatever that is) , we are unable to read off 
the history of the cosmos;" much less can we 
attain to an explanation of biological processes. 

5. The Supraphysical Method. — By this is 
meant a method, not beyond the physical exact- 
ly, but superimposed upon it; 

"The explanation of all the modes of physical combi- 
nations and histories, and all their associated develop- 
ments." 

6. The Symbolic Method. — It is 

"The peculiarity of Mr. Spencer's system that his unifi? 
cation of knowedge is effected by means of the dis- 
cernment of the relation of unknowable entities; which 
entities cannot be represented in thought, and have to 
be symbolized by certain signs." 

Mr. Guthrie thinks knowledge cannot be uni- 
fied in this way. 

The pith and point of an extensive criticism 
of Mr. Guthrie on Spencer's Biology is, that he 
lias ignored feeling as a factor in the explanation 
of the processes of life. 

The final estimate of Mr. Spencer's work is 
given by Mr. Guthrie as follows: 



65 

"With regard to Mr. Spencer's system of philosophy, 
taken as a whole, we come to the conclusion that, ad- 
mirable as is the boldness, magnificent as is the sweep, 
extraordinary as is the connectiveness of his reason- 
ings, he nevertheless fails in his vast attempt. At the 
same time we must admire the grandeur of the outline 
he has sketched, acknowledge the greater breadth of 
view he has given to human speculation, and appre- 
ciate the abounding wealth of suggestion displayed 
throughout the work, which not only enriches human 
knowledge, but is sure to give rise to further earnest, 
bold and penetrating research into the mysteries of 
Nature. 

"At the same time we feel that, although deduction 
may give unity and consolidation to science, it must 
be mainly to experience and induction that we are to 
look for the solid increment of knowledge; and it* ever 
we arrive at a final unification, which is doubtful, it 
must be by the patient labor of the human race 
through ages yet unborn.'' 



CHAPTER X. 

SPENCER AND JOHN STUART MILL. 

Mr. Mill, who always appreciated genius, had 
great admiration for Spencer. This feeling was 
fully reciprocated by Mr. Spencer, who, in a 
note to the second volume of his Psychology, 
speaks of Mill as one whose agreement he should 
value more than that of any other thinker. And 
yet these great thinkers, thus highly regarding 
each other, and both having the benefit of the 
best thought of ancient and modern times, could 
not, as metaphysicians, think alike. 

Without stopping to consider whether or not 
this has a tendency to place metaphysics under 
suspicion, let us briefly glance at some of the 
points wherein these philosophers differ. 

Spencer, taking an abstruse and metaphysical 
view of space and time, considers them wholly in- 
comprehensible. Mill, on the other hand, saw 
no difficulty in comprehending a definite portion 
of space, or even in forming by comparison a 
tolerably correct notion of infinite space; though 
infinity in itself is, of course, incomprehensible. 
And so of time. 

(66) 



67 
Mill and Spencer differed, also, in some of the 
fundamentals of logic. 

According to Spencer, the essential test of the 
validity of every proposition — that which deter- 
mines it as having the highest possible certainty 
— is, that its negation is inconceivable. This Mr. 
Mill denied. The views of Mr. Spencer were 
put forth in an article published in the West- 
minster Review for October, 1853. This was, in 
part, a criticism on the controversy between Mr. 
Mill and Dr. Whewell, respecting the nature of 
necessary truths. Mr. Mill answered in the next 
edition of his "Logic"; a reply from Spencer 
was afterward published in the Fortnightly Re- 
view; and a rejoinder from Mill in the later edi- 
tions of his Logic. The final argument of Spen- 
cer is given in the eleventh chapter of Part VII 
of his Psychology. 

The arguments on both sides, as they appear 
in the respective writings, may be summarized 
thus: 

Sfi:xcer.— To ascertain whether, along with a cer- 
tain subject, a certain predicate invariably exists, we 
have no other way than to seek for a case in which 
the subject exists without it. We conduct the search 
by trying to replace this invariably existing predicate 
by some other, or by trying to suppress it altogether 
without replacing it. The failure to conceive the ne- 
gation is the discovery that along with the subject 
there invariably exists the predicate. Hence the in- 
conceivableness of its negation is that which shows a 
cognition to possess the highest rank — is the criterion 
by which its unsurpassable validity is known. 



68 

Mill.— This cannot be a correct test, because propo- 
>na once accepted as true because they withstood 
this tost, have since been proved false. There was a 
time when men of the most cultivated intellects, and 
the most emancipated from the dominion of early pre- 
judice, could not credit the existence of antipodes; 
were unable to conceive, in opposition to old associa- 
tion, the force of gravity acting upwards instead of 
downwards. Newton held an etherial medium to be 
a necessary implication of observed facts; but it is not 
now held to be a necessary implication. 

Spencer.— The propositions erroneously accepted 
because they seemed to withstand the test, were com- 
plex propositions to which the test was inapplicable. 
No errors arising from its illegitimate application can 
be held to tell against its legitimate application. 

Mill. -How are we to decide what is a legitimate 
application of the test? 

Spencer.— By restricting its application to proposi- 
tions which are not further decomposable. In respect 
of those questions legitimately brought to judgment 
by this test, there is no dispute about the answer. 
From the earliest times on record down to our own, 
men have not changed their beliefs concerning the 
truths of number.. The axiom that if equals be added 
to unequals the sums are unequal, was held by the 
Greeks, no less than by ourselves, as a direct verdict 
of consciousness from which there is no appeal. Each 
step in each demonstration of Euclid we accept as they 
accepted it, because we immediately see that the al- 
leged relation is as alleged; and that it is impossible 
to conceive it otherwise. 

Mill. -Hut it must not be forgotten that these axi- 
omatic truths of which you speak are inductions from 
experience. When we have often seen and thought of 
two things together, and have never in any one in- 
or thought of them separately, there is by 



69 

the primary law of association an increasing difficulty, 
which may in the end become insuperable, of conceiv- 
ing the two things apart. These inseparable associa- 
tions, which constitute necessities of thought, and are 
regarded as axioms, are the result of experience. 

Spencer.— This view of the matter I accept in part 
—but I regard these data of intelligence as a priori 
for the individual, but a posteriori for that entire se- 
ries of individuals of which he forms the last term. 
The best warrant men can have for a belief is the per- 
fect agreement of all preceding experience in support 
of it; and as, at any given time, a cognition of which 
the negation remains inconceivable is, by the hypoth- 
esis, one that has been verified by all experiences up 
to that time; it follows, that at any time the incon- 
ceivableness of its negation is the strongest justifica- 
tion a cognition can have. 

Mill.— Even if it were true that inconceivableness 
represents the "net result'' of all past experience, why 
should we stop at the representative when we can get 
at the thing represented? If our incapacity to con- 
ceive the negation of a given supposition is proof of its 
truth, because proving that our experience has hitherto 
been uniform in its favor, the real evidence for the 
supposition is not the inconceivableness, but the uni- 
formity of experience. Xow this, which is the sub- 
stantial and only proof, is directly accessible. We are 
not obliged to presume it from an incidental conse- 
quence. Jf all past experience is in favor of a belief, 
let this be stated, and the belief be openly rested on 
that ground; after which the question arises, what that 
fact may be worth as evidence of its truth. 

Spencer.— For the great mass of our cognitions we 
cannot employ such a method of verification, for sev- 
eral reasons: First, the implied enumeration of experi- 
ences, if possible, would postpone indefinitely the es- 
tablishment of any conclusion as valid; second, no such 
enumeration of experiences is possible; and third, if 



70 
possible the warrant gained for the conclusion, could 
never be as great as that of the test objected to. In each 
successive step of an argument the dependence of the 
conclusion upon its premises is a truth of which we 
have no other proof than that the reverse is inconceiv- 
able. And if this be an insufficient warrant for as- 
serting the necessity of the axiomatic premises, it is an 
insufficient warrant for asserting the necessity of any 
link in the argument. Logical necessity and mathe- 
matical necessity must stand or fall together. 



Whatever may be thought of this discussion, 
it has at least the merit of presenting an issue 
which is well defined and fully understood, and 
understood alike by the contending parties. 
This is more than can be said of some of the 
other discussions between the same parties — dis- 
cussions on logical distinctions which turn to 
some extent upon the meaning of the terms 
used. 

Mr. Mill was a more logical writer than Spen- 
cer, because he looked closely to the mean- 
ing of terms, and to the sense in wilich they are 
used; something which logic imperatively re- 
quires, but which Mr. Spencer, as will be seen 
hereafter, does not always do. Mr. Mill was an 
acute metaphysician; so is Mr. Spencer; and in 
both, as we follow the metaphysical train of 
thought, we see more than a mere tendency to 
idealism. This is owing to the attempt to sub- 
ject processes of thought to the same rigid analy- 
sis that is applied to the phenomena of the phys- 
ical world. Auguste Comte prudently declines 
the attempt. Mill, in his analysis of mind and 



71 

matter, comes to the conclusion that matter is 
nothing but the permanent possibility of sensa- 
tions; and refuses to recognize the existence of 
matter, except under this definition. The con- 
clusion of Mr. Spencer is not far different. His 
idealism is, however, more decided, since he dis- 
tinctly asserts that the relations of co-existence, 
of sequence, and of difference, as we know them, 
do not obtain beyond consciousness. 

While the mind is directed to the objective 
— to the investigation of the phenomena in the 
world about us — great thinkers substantially 
agree; but when it is directed to the subjective 
— to the world within — the ego — they disagree 
with each other in nearly every thing except in 
their doabts whether there is any other world 
than that which they are investigating. 



CHAPTER XI. 

SPENCER AND FREDERIC HARRISON. 

In the Popular Science Monthly for January, 
1884, appeared an article, republished from the 
Nineteenth Century, written by Herbert Spen- 
cer, entitled "Religion, a Retrospect and Pros- 
pect." 

Tracing the origin of religion to the belief in 
ghosts, Mr. Spencer distinctly recognizes the 
fact, that in the primitive human mind there ex- 
ists neither religious idea nor religious senti- 
ment. 

Inquiring what may be inferred as to the evo- 
lution of religion in the future, he concludes 
that the religious idea will not disappear, but 
that it will continue to undergo changes. 

Commenting on the changes which religious 
thought is undergoing and must still undergo, 
he says: 

"The cruelty of a Fijian god, who, represented as de- 
vouring the souls of the dead, may be supposed to in- 
flict torture during the process, is small compared with 
the cruelty of a god who condemns men to tortures 
(72) 



73 

which are eternal Clearly, this change can- 
not cease until the beliefs in hell and damnation disap- 
pear. Disappearance of them will be aided by an in- 
creasing repugnance to injustice. The visiting on Ad- 
am's descendants through hundreds of generations 
dreadful penalties for a small transgression which 
they did not commit; the damning of all men who do 
not avail themselves of an alleged mode of obtaining 
forgiveness, which most men have never heard of, and 
the effecting a reconciliation by sacrificing a son who 
was perfectly innocent, to satisfy the assumed necessi- 
ty for a propitiatory victim, are modes of action which, 
ascribed to a human ruler, would call forth expressions 
of abhorrence; and the ascription of them to the Ulti- 
mate Cause of things, even now felt to be full of diffi- 
culties, must become impossible. So, too, must die out 
the belief that a Power presen* in innumerable worlds 
through infinite space, and who, during millions of 
years of the earth's earlier existence, needed no hon- 
oring by its inhabitants, should be seized with a craving 
for praise; and having created mankind, should be an- 
gry with them if they do not perpetually tell him how 
great he is." 

Mr. Spencer's conclusion is, that the concep- 
tion of the Deity will continue to enlarge until 
it finally becomes merged in the consciousness 
of an Unknowable First Cause. 

The article closes thus: 

"Amid the mysteries which become more mysterious 
the more they are thought about, there will remain the 
one absolute certainty, that he is ever in presence of 
an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things 
proceed." 

Harrison. — Upon this article Frederic Harri- 
son wrote a criticism entitled "The Ghost of Re- 
ligion," which was published in the Nineteenth 



74 

Century, and republished in the Popular Sci- 
ence Monthly. He begins thus: 

" In the January number of this review is to be 
found an article on 'Religion,' which has justly awak- 
ened a profound and sustained interest. The creed of 
Agnosticism was there formulated anew by the ac- 
knowledged head of the evolution philosophy, with a 
denniteness such as perhaps it never wore before. To 
my mind there is nothing in the whole range of 
modern religious discussion more cogent and more 
suggestive than the array of conclusions the final out- 
come of which is marshaled in these twelve pages. It 
is the last word of the Agnostic philosophy in its long 
controversy with theology. That word is decisive; 
and it is hard to conceive how theology can rally for 
another bout from such a sorites of dilemma as is 
there presented." 

He disclaims any attempt to criticise further 
than to add a word concerning the "Religion" of 
the Unknowable. "To me," he says, "it is rath- 
er the Ghost of Religion." 

He thinks the phrase "Infinite and Eternal 
Energy from which all things proceed" savors 
too much of theology. In the Athanasian Creed 
the Third Person "proceeds" from the First and 
Second. 

Mr. Harrison differs from Mr. Spencer, some- 
what, as to the origin of religion. He thinks 
that fetichism, or Nature-worship, preceded the 
belief in ghosts. 

His strongest attack, however, is on the Doc- 
trine of the Unknowable: 

"Let us take each one of these three elements of re- 
ligion—belief, worship, conduct, and try them all in 
turn, as applicable to the Unknowable. How mere a 



75 

phrase must any religion be of which neither belief, 
nor worship, nor conduct can be spoken! . . . Im- 
agine a religion which excludes the idea of worship be- 
cause its sole dogma is the infinity of nothingness. 

"Although the Unknowable is logically said to be 
Something, yet the something of which we neither 
know nor conceive anything is practically nothing. . . . 
It would hardly be sane to make a religion out of the 
Equator or the Binomial Theorem. But to make a re- 
ligion out of the Unknowable is far more extravagant 
than to make it out of the Equator. AVe know some- 
thing about the Equator. ,, 

Mr. Harrison advocates the Religion of Hu- 
manity. 

"Humanity is the grandest object of reverence with- 
in the region of the real and the known; Humanity, 
with the world on which it rests, as its base and envi- 
ronment. n 

Spencer.— To this Mr. Spencer replies, in an 
an article entitled "Retrogressive Religion. " 

" In days when dueling was common," says Mr. Spen- 
cer, "and its code of ceremonial well elaborated, a 
deadly encounter was preceded by a polite salute. 
Having by his obeisance professed to be his antago- 
nist's very humble servant, each forthwith did his best 
to run him through the body. This usage is recalled 
to me by the contrast between the compliments with 
which Mr. Harrison begins his article, 'The Ghost of 
Religion,' and the efforts he afterwards makes to de- 
stroy, in the brilliant style habitual with him, all but 
the negative part of that which he applauds. After 
speaking with too ilattering eulogy of the mode in 
which I have dealt with current theological doctrines, 
he does his best, amid flashes of wit coming from its 
polished surface, to pass the sword of his logic through 
the ribs of my argument, and let out its vital principle." 



76 

Mr. Spencer defends his doctrine of the Un- 
knowable, and accuses Mr, Harrison of not be- 
ing entirely fair in his representation of the 
doctrine. 

Ho also defends the ghost-theory as to the or- 
igin of religion. Then, treating Harrison as an 
avowed advocate of Positivism, he makes an at- 
tack on the system of Comte, ridiculing Comte's 
ritual in the worship of Humanity. 

Harrison. — The next article of Mr. Harrison 
is entitled "Agnostic Metaphysics." 

He states the positions of Mr. Spencer in re- 
gard to Religion, positions which he, Harrison, 
regards as constituting a "gigantic paradox." 
These are: 

That the proper object of Religion is a Some- 
thing which never can be known or conceived, 
or understood; to which we cannot apply the 
terms emotion, will, intelligence; of which we 
cannot affirm or deny personality — an Inscruta- 
ble Existence or Unknowable Cause, the Ulti- 
mate Cause, the All-Being, the Creative Power. 
That the essential business of Religion is to keep 
alive the consciousness of a mystery that cannot 
be fathomed; and that we are not concerned to 
know what effect this Religion will have as a 
moral agent. 

"Mr. Spencer says to the theologians: 'I cannot al- 
low you to speak of a First Cause, or a Creator, or an 
All Being, or an Absolute Existence, because you 
mean something intelligible and conceivable by these 
terms; and I tell you that they stand for ideas that are 



77 

unthinkable and inconceivable. But,' he adds, 'I have 
a perfect right to talk of an Ultimate Cause, and a 
Creative Power, and an Absolute Existence, and an 
All-Being, because I mean nothing by these terms— at 
least nothing that can be either thought of or con- 
ceived of; and I know that I am not talking of any 
thing intelligible or conceivable.' " 

Quoting what Mr. Spencer writes in regard to 
"a consciousness of a Mystery that cannot be 
fathomed," Mr. Harrison says: 

"It would be idle to find for Religion a lower and 
more idle part to play in human life, than that of con- 
tinually presenting to man a conundrum which he is 
told he must continually give up." 

After again combating the ghost-theory as to 
the origin of all religion, Mr. Harrison closes 
his article with an elaborate vindication of Au- 
guste Comte. 

Spencer. — In his reply, entitled "Last Words 
About Agnosticism and the Religion of Hu- 
manity," Mr. Spencer says: 

"Those who expected from Mr. Harrison an interest- 
ing rejoinder to my reply, will not be disappointed. 
Those who looked for points skillfully made which ei- 
ther are or seem to be telling, will be fully satisfied. 
Those w r ho sought pleasure from witnessing the dis- 
play of literary pow r er, will close his article gratified 
with the hour they have spent over it." 

Mr. Spencer still further maintains his theory 
with regard to the ghost origin of religion. He 
complains of having been misrepresented by Mr. 
Harrison, closing thus: 

"I end by pointing out, as I pointed out before, that 
while the things L have said have not been disproved, 



78 
the things which have been disproved are things I have 

not said." 

Harbison, Supplementary. — Mr. Harrison 
announces that he does not intend to continue 
the discussion and accepts Mr. Spencer's third 
paper as closing the debate. Nevertheless, in a 
short article, he takes the last word. 

He had charged Mr. Spencer with knowing 
nothing about the philosophy of Auguste Comte; 
a charge which Mr. Spencer had repelled. In 
support of this charge, Mr. Harrison now states 
that Comte's waitings consist of eight principal 
works, from 1830 to 1856. That in 1864, many 
years after Comte's death, and twelve years after 
Comte had finally settled his classification of the 
sciences, Mr. Spencer wrote a work on "The 
Classification of the Sciences; and Reasons for 
Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte," 
throughout which work Mr. Spencer speaks of 
Comte as making six sciences. 

" Now, in all Comte's works except the first, he 
makes seven sciences. The seven sciences are the A 
B C of Positivism. In Newton Hall, or any other Pos- 
itivist school, tables of the seven sciences may be seen, 
and they occur in tens of thousands of Positivist pub- 
lications, English and French. Yet for twenty years 
Mr. Spencer has gone on reprinting his 'Reasons for 
dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte,' without 
an inkling of the fact that for thirty-two years Comte's 
works speak of seven, not six, sciences as the founda- 
tion of his Philosophy. Mr. Spencer reprints the w r ork 
' October, still with the same blunder. It is as if a 
writer on the British constitution persisted in talking 
about the four estates of the realm, or as if a man 



79 

should dissent from the Church of England on the 
ground of her having forty-nine Articles of Religion." 

This discussion attracted much attention, both 
in England and in this country. Prof. Youmans 
spoke of the brilliant manner in which it had 
been conducted on the part of Mr. Harrison, 
and gave this as a reason why it ought to be 
published by Mr. Spencer's friends in this coun- 
try previous to an anticipated publication by the 
Positivists. It was feared that such a publica- 
tion on their part would give an impetus to the 
Positive cause. 

Had Mr. Harrison confined himself to the 
doctrine of the Unknowable, and to the attempt 
to make it the basis of a religion, his superiority 
in the argument would have been unquestiona- 
ble. By espousing the Eeligion of Humanity, 
he gave Mr. Spencer an opportunity, which he 
did not fail to improve, to attack and ridicule the 
worship of Humanity as it had been advocated 
and prescribed by Comte. It enabled Mr. Spen- 
cer to make use of the "argumentum ad homi- 
nem." and thus to divert attention from the se- 
vere attack which had been made upon the doc- 
trine of the Unknowable, as a theological dog- 
ma. 

Note. — Comte's seventh science was "Morals," 
which he had carved out of "Sociology," It was care- 
less in Spencer to omit it, The omission did not, how- 
ever, materially affect his criticism, which was found- 
ed on Comte's arrangement of the sciences, commenc- 
ing with Mathematics, and ending with Sociology. 



CHAPTER XII. 

CRITICISMS AND EULOGIUMS — WATSON — BOWNE — 
ROBERTSON. 

"Gospels of Yesterday — Drummond; Spencer; 
Arnold. By Robert A. Watson, M. A., London, 

1888." 

The criticism of Mr. Watson, as far as Mr. 
Spencer is concerned, is directed entirely against 
the "Data of Ethics." 

It is contended that the Data of Ethics fails 
to present a system of morals adapted to man- 
kind, especially in its present condition; that 
the intense struggle for existence renders it im- 
possible to adopt a cool, calculating scheme of 
mixed egoism and altruism such as that offered 
by Mr. Spencer. 



"Tin: Philosophy of Herbert Spencer. Being 
an Examination of the First Principles of 
ins System. By J3. P. Bowne, A. B., New York, 
1874." 

This book is based upon several essays which 

appeared in the "New Englander." These are 

tli*- titles discussed: 

(80) 



81 

What is Evolution? 

Laws of the Unknowable; 

Laws of the Knowable; 

Principles of Psychology; 

The Theistic Argument. 

The subjects are handled with a good deal of 
ability. But the work is in style highly contro- 
versial, and is marred by constant invective and 
numerous attempts at satire. 

In summing up the doctrine of the Unknowa- 
ble, the following points are taken: 

" Spencer says, religion is impossible, because it in- 
volves unthinkable ideas. 

" Science is possible, though it involves the same un- 
thinkable ideas. 

"God must be conceived as self-existent, and is, 
therefore, an untenable hypothesis." 

"The fundamental Reality must be conceived as 
self -existent, and is not an untenable hypothesis." 

" To deny a thing to thought," says Mr. 
Bowne, "and save it to existence, is impossible;" 
but this had been said before by James Marti- 
neau. 

This saying of Martineau is full of meaning, 
and goes to the foundation of the doctrine of 
the Unknowable. If we cannot think of any 
thing as existing, then, surely, we have no right 
to assert its existence. The "Absolute," the 
" First Cause" of the New Philosophy is pro- 
nounced not only unknowable, but also unthink- 
able. 

Cousin held that we have an immediate, intui- 
tive knowledge of God. 



82 

This was antagonized by Sir William Hamil- 
ton, who admitted only the finite element in 
consciousness. In this, John Stuart Mill agreed 
with Hamilton. But Mill, while he held with 
Hamilton that the abstract idea of the Absolute 
and of the Infinite is only the negation of the 
relative and of the finite, yet maintained that 
"something" infinite can be conceived; as infi- 
nite space and infinite time. 

Mill did not, like Spencer, claim to arrive at 
the existence of Infinite Being by the scientific 
method. 

Hamilton accepted the existence of God as at- 
tested by a faculty of the human mind called be- 
lief, which he placed above reason. Spencer 
antagonized this theory. He, however, by an- 
other method, arrives at a First Cause, but does 
not call it God. 

Such is the result of metaphysical specula- 
tion. 

Now, if there is any such thing as a science 
of metaphysics, how is it that no two of four of 
the greatest thinkers of modern times can agree 
upon its first principles? 

Cousin, Hamilton, Mill and Spencer all agree 
upon the multiplication table, from beginning to 
end. They agree upon all the demonstrations 
of Euclid. They agree upon the distance of the 
sun and moon from the earth, upon the consti- 
tution and arrangement of the solar system, and 
upon the movements of the heavenly bodies. 
They agree upon the elements in chemistry, and 



83 
upon the laws that govern animal life. They 
agree upon the first principles of all the sciences. 
But in metaphysics they disagree upon every 
thing which is most material. 

When Descartes said "Cogito, ergo sum," ("I 
think, therefore I am,") that was science; but 
metaphysics, as a science, has never been able 
to get any further. We can assert that we ex- 
ist, because we think. But the moment we ask 
how we think, and what it is possible to think 
of, w T e are lost in the mazes of metaphysical spec- 
ulations. 

So long as the most eminent thinkers of the 
age cannot agree upon the first principles to be 
applied to the thinking process — so long as they 
cannot agree upon the fundamental laws of 
thought — are we not justified in saying that 
there is no such thing as a science of metaphys- 
ics? 

"For two thousand years," says Comte, "during 
which which the metaphysicians have thus cultivated 
psychology, they have not been able to arrive at a sin- 
gle proposition intelligible and firmly fixed. They are, 
even to-day, divided into a multitude of schools which 
dispute without ceasing concerning the first elements 
of their doctrines." (Depuis deux mille ans que les 
metaphysiciens cultivent ainsi lapsychologie, ils nont 
pu encore convenir d'une seule proposition intelligible 
et solidement arretee. Ils sont, meme aujourd'hui, 
partages en une multitude d'ecoles qui disputent sans 
cesse sur les premiers elements de leurs doctrines.) — 
fCours de la Philosophie Positive. 3me Edition, Paris, 
1869, Vol. I, p 32. 

"What," asks Voltaire, "have all the philosophers, 



84 

ancient and modern, taught us? A child is wiser 
than they. It does not think about that which it can- 
not comprehend."— (Un enfant est plus sage qu'eux; il 
ne pense pas a ce qu'il ne peut concevoir.) — [Diction- 
naire Philosophique, Article "Ame." 

Voltaire thinks that the great difficulty lies in 
comprehending how a being, whatever it may be, 
has thoughts; (de comprendre comment un etre, 
quel qu'il soit, a des pensees.) 

In another place, writing in that inimitable 
vein of irony for which he was so distinguished, 
he suggests that in every thing relating to met- 
aphysics, we should commence by a sincere sub- 
mission to the indubitable dogmas of the Church. 

(Tons les articles qui tiennent a. la metaphysique 
doivent eommencer par une soumission sincere aux 
dogmes indubitables de l'Eglise.) 



" Modern Humanists. By John M. Robertson, 
Author of ' Essays towards a Critical Meth- 
od;' 'Christ and Krishna,' &c. London, 1891." 

"Mr. Spencer undertakes to establish a final recon- 
ciliation between Religion and Science. . . . The 
so-called reconciliation borders very closely onthe'gro- 
Gesque. Religion and Science are to be finally recon- 
ciled when Religion has abandoned every dogma and 
every positive belief, and takes the shape of a final 
negative proposition that Science never rejected, and 
has loiig affirmed. . . . What good has Religion, as 
such, ever done to Science? Forced it to admit the 
iinal mystery of things? Why, Science never denied 
that at any stage, and has been affirming it for centu- 


" The one thing left to religion is, identification of 
itsell with the final negative proposition of Science. 



85 

That is to say, the reconciliation of Keligion and Sci- 
ence consists in Religion, as such, disappearing. The 
'permanent peace' is attained when one combatant has 
eaten the other up, leaving not even the tail. ... I 
object to adopting consciously the grim irony of the 
Spencerian formula to the effect that Religion, thus 
reduced to the mummy state, has been blissfully 'rec- 
onciled' with its surviving rival. The phrase recalls 
the rhyme about the 

1 Young lady of Riga, 
Who went for a ride on a tiger: 

They returned from that ride 

With the lady inside, 
And a smile on the face of the tiger.' 

"You would hardly say in her epitaph— if you set up 
a symbolic gravestone — that the lady and the tiger 
were reconciled." 

Mr. Robertson severely criticizes Mr. Spencer 
for his political conservatism, and his refusal to 
advocate any of the reforms of the day. He then 
closes with the following eulogy: 

"And yet again, when all is said, how shall we 
measure our debt to the man whose wide achievement 
has laid the enduring foundation for this new art [the 
study of the order of Nature], and whose deeper and 
sounder teaching has given us the light which his 
mere temperamental bias would now shut out? Who 
has in our day widened and consolidated our knowl- 
edge as he has done? And what surer contribution 
is there than that to the reconstruction of our life? 
So imperishable is the service that our last words 
must needs be the acknowledgment of it. In the name 
of those who indorse all the criticism we have passed 
on what we reckon the perishable part of the thinker's 
work, do we finally turn and say: 

"Hail, spiritual Father and honored Master, who first 
trained us to shape our path through the forest by the 
eternal guidance of sun and stars! Though we now 



86 

must needs turn against the barriers you have raised, 
the gymnastic you yourself have given, and the wood- 
craft you yourself have taught, yet would we claim to 
hold our* elves of your great lineage still; and when we 
in turn grow 'wan with many memories/ it is your 
name and not another's that we shall hand to our 
children as that of the foremost founder of the new 
line, the greatest herald of the new age." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

CRITICISMS CONTINUED— MANSEL— CAIRD — HODG- 
SON— xMAX MUELLER— SIDG WICK— JAMES 
MARTINEAU — MOULTON — PROFES- 
SOR GREEN. 

Most of the criticisms of these writers ap- 
peared, from time to time, in the British maga- 
zines, and were replied to by Mr. Spencer in his 
Essays. 

Dr. Henry L. Mansel. — In his "Philosophy 
of the Conditioned" (p. 39), Dr. Mansel says: 

"Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his work on 'First Princi- 
ples,' endeavors to press Sir W. Hamilton into the ser- 
vice of Pantheism and Positivism together, by adopt- 
ing the negative portion only of his philosophy— in 
which, in common with many other writers, he de- 
clares the absolute to be inconceivable by the mere in- 
tellect,— and rejecting the positive portions, in which he 
most emphatically maintains that the belief in a per- 
sonal God is imperatively demanded by the facts of 
our moral and emotional consciousness. . . . Mr. 
Spencer takes these negative inferences as the only ba- 
sis of religion, and abandons Hamilton's great princi- 
ple of the distinction between knowledge and belief." 

Mr. Spencer denies that he takes the negative 

(87) 



inferences of Hamilton as the only basis of relig- 
ion, and maintains thai he has an indestructible 
positive basis for the religious sentiment. 

Rev. Principal Caird. — Dr. Caird says: 

"His thesis is that the provinces of science and re- 
ligion are distinguished from each other as the known 
from the unknown and unknowable." 

Dr. Caird inquires whether the knowledge of 
a limit does not imply already the power to 
transcend it? 

Mr. Spencer admits that he had himself 
raised that objection, and repeats what he had 
once said in an unpublished note: 

"Instead of positively saying that the Absolute is 
unknowable, we must say that we cannot tell whether 
it is unknowable or not." 



Shadworth H. Hodgson. — "The Future of 
Metaphysics"; published in the Contemporary 
"Review for November, 1872. 

Dr. Hodgson, who is acknowledged by Mr. 
Spencer to be "a thinker of subtlety and inde- 
pendence," while he speaks in the highest terms 
of Spencer's science, criticizes somewhat sharply 
his metaphysics. After commenting on the 
Spencerian doctrine as to the incomprehensibil- 
ity of space and time, he says: 

"It is bad enough to be told by theologians or by 
popular philosophers that there are Noumena behind 
phenomena; but at least there is work for the Noume- 
natodo; they are reservoirs of force for interfering 
with the laws of Nature. But to be told that there is 
a Noumenon behind phenomena, and that this Nou- 



89 

menon is entirely unknowable— this is a hyperbole of 
mysticism, a negation of negation, which it would re- 
quire a greater than Hegel to comprehend." 

Mr. Hodgson holds that the notion of an Un- 
knowable Substrate or Cause, is an attenuated 
empirical notion, "doing duty as a metaphysical 
one, and occupying the field of metaphysic." 

"Why," he asks, "should Mr. Spencer, with all his 
wealth in science, and particularly in psychology, cov- 
et the Naboth's vineyard of the metaphysicians?" 

After discussing at some length the doctrines 
of Kant an I Spencer in regard to space and 
time, etc., he says: 

"Yet Mr. Spencer proceeds to use these inconceiva- 
ble ideas as the basis of his philosophy. For mark, it 
is space and time as we know them, the actual and 
phenomenal space and time, to which all these incon- 
ceivabilities attach. Mr. Spencer's result ought, there- 
fore, logically to be, skepticism. What is his actual re- 
sult? Ontology. And how so? Why, instead of re- 
jecting space and time as the inconceivable things he 
has tried to demonstrate them to be, he substitutes for 
them an unknowable— a something which they really 
are, though we cannot know it— and rejects that in- 
stead of them from knowledge." 

Mr. Spencer thinks it strange that Dr. Hodg- 
son should not be able to understand him bet- 
ter. He repeats what he says he has tried to 
make clear, 

"That the consciousness of an Ultimate Reality, though 
not capable of being made a thought, properly so 
called, because not capable of being brought within 
limits, nevertheless remains as a consciousness that is 
positive ; is not rendered negative by the negation of 
limits." 



90 

Max Mueller.— Professor Mueller thinks 
Spencer's views are more nearly allied to those 
of Kant than to those of Locke. 

To tins Mr. Spencer demurs, and repeats the 
reasons he had previously given for dissenting 
frotfl Kant. He does not agree with Kant, that 
space is the form of all external intuition; nor 
does he agree with him, that the consciousness 
of space continues when the consciousness of all 
tilings contained in it is suppressed; nor in the 
inference thence drawn, that space is an "a pri- 
ori" form of intuition. 

Sidgwick. — In a review of the "Principles of 
Psychology." Mr. H. Sidgwick, after quoting 
from Spencer his statement that 

"A change in the objective reality causes in the sub- 
jective state a change exactly answering to it, so an- 
s tee ring as to constitute a cognition of it" 

Remarks: 

"Here the 'something beyond consciousness' is no 
longer said to be unknown, as its effect in conscious- 
ness 'constitutes a cognition of it.' " 

To which Mr. Spencer replies: 

"This apparent inconsistency, marked by the italics, 
would not have existed if, instead of 'a cognition of 
it.' i had said, as I ought to have said, "what ice call a 
cognition of it'- that is, a relative cognition as distin- 
guished from an absolute cognition." 

Referring to the statement of Mr. Spencer that 

"our states of consciousness are the only things 
we can know." Mr. Sidgwick claims that Spen- 
cer is radically inconsistent, because, in inter- 



91 

preting the phenomena of consciousness, he con- 
tinually postulates, not an unknown something, 
but a something of which he speaks in ordinary 
terms, as though its ascribed physical characters 
really exist as such, instead of being, as Spencer 
claims they are, synthetic states of conscious- 
ness. 

Rev. James Martineau. — Essay entitled 
"Science, Nescience, and Faith." This will be 
found in the third volume of Martineau's Essays. 

Referring to the criticism contained in this 
essay, Mr. Spencer says: 

"I have reserved to the last one of the first objections 
made to the metaphysico-theological doctrine set forth 
in 'First Principles,' and implied in the several vol- 
umes that have succeeded it. It was urged by an able 
metaphysician, the Rev. James Martineau, in an essay 
entitled 'Science, Nescience, and Faith'; and, effective 
against my argument as it stands, shows the need for 
some development of my argument." 

In "First Principles" Mr. Spencer had said: 

"If the Non-relative or Absolute is present in 
thought only, and a mere negation, then the relation 
between it and the Relative becomes unthinkable, be- 
cause one of the terms of the relation is absent from 
consciousness. And if this relation is unthinkable, 
then is the Relative itself unthinkable, for want of its 
antithesis; whence results the disappearance of all 
thought whatever.'' 

MR. MARTINEAU'S CRITICISM. 

"Take away its antithetic term, and the relative, 
thrown into isolation, is set up as absolute, and disap- 
pears from thought. It is indispensable, therefore, to 
uphold the Absolute in existence, as a condition of the 



92 

relative sphere which constitutes our whole intellectual 
domain. Beit so. J5nt when saved on this plea— to 
preserve the balance and interdependence of two co- 
relatives the Absolute is absolute no more; it is re- 
duced to a term of relation; it loses, therefore, its exile 
from thought; its disqualification is canceled; and the 
alleged nescience is discharged. 

t he same law of thought which warrants the ex- 
istence dissolves the inscrutableness of the Absolute." 
" I admit this," says Spencer, "to be a telling rejoin- 
der; and one which can be met only when the mean- 
ings of the words, as I have used them, are carefully 
discriminated, and the implications of the doctrine 
fully traced out." 

He then proceeds to restate and elucidate the 
argument: 

He does not, he says, commit himself to 
any propositions respecting the Absolute, con- 
sidered as that which includes both subject and 
object. He prefers the term Non-relative. By 
that is to be understood "the totality of Be- 
ing minus that which constitutes the individual 
consciousness present to us under the forms of 
relation." 

J. F. Moulton, in the British Quarterly Re- 
view for October, 1873, and January, 1874. 

In the first article Mr. Moulton attacks Spen- 
cer's position, that the first and second laws of 
motion are to be accepted as axioms of physical 
science. This position Mr. Spencer defends and 
maintains in an elaborate reply. 

I n the second article in the British Quarterly 
Mr. Moulton returns to the attack, which draws 
another reply. 



"Reduced to its briefest form," sajj Mr. Spencer, 
"the argument is this: 

"If definite quantitative relations [of proportionali- 
ty] between causes and effects be assumed a priori, 
then the second law of motion is an immediate corol- 
lary. If there are not definite quantitative relations 
[of proportionality] between causes and effects, all the 
conclusions drawn from physical experiments are in- 
valid." 

Professor Green, in the Contemporary Re- 
view for February, 1881, comments on the posi- 
tion of Spencer, that "the object is constituted by 
the aggregate of vivid states of consciousness." 

Spencer denies that this is his position; say- 
ing the allegation is made "in face of the con- 
spicuous fact that I identify the object with the 
nexus of this aggregate." 

Professor Green says: 

"And in the sequel the 'separation of themselves' on 
the part of the states of consciousness 'into two great 
aggregates, vivid and faint,' is spoken of as a 'differen- 
tiation between the antithetical existences w T e call ob- 
ject and subject.' If words mean any thing, then Mr. 
Spencer plainly makes the 'object' an aggregate of 
conscious states.'' 

Professor Green points out that since Spencer 
claims that the object consists of states of con- 
sciousness, he cannot at the same time consist- 
ently say that it exists beyond consciousness. 

Prof. Green here touches upon Spencer's sys- 
tem of idealism; a system which the author de- 
nominates "Transfigured Realism." This will 
be made the subject of a subsequent chapter. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CRITICISMS CONTINUED — MEARS — ATWATER — 
WYNN — STEBBINS — ALGER. 



MR. SPENCER'S RELIGION. 



Review in the Bibliotiieca Sacra for April, 
1874, by John W. Mears, Albert Barnes Pro- 
fessor of Intellectual and Moral Philoso- 
phy in Hamilton College, N. Y. 

"It is a long time since purely English philosophy 
has produced so able, so comprehensive and so daring 
a thinker as Herbert Spencer. Unlike Mr. Mill, he con- 
structs rather than criticises 

"Theoretically, indeed, not an Atheist, his philosophy 
denies the possibility of all practical relations between 
(iod and man, if, indeed, it be not fairly chargeable 
with denying the existence of any thing that could 
properly be called God 

"11 is First Principles commences with an attempted 
reconciliation of religion and science, which is remark- 
able as coming from the side of science, and as proving 
that the pressure for such a reconciliation is felt in 
that quarter as well as in the other 

"It is nut an attempt to reconcile science with a re- 
ligion, or with the true religion, but with an ultimate 
abstraction, void of all positive qualities, which Spen- 
cer chooses to call the religious idea." 
(94) 



95 

After enumerating some of the claims which 
Mr. Spencer makes, he asks: 

"What lurking postulate silently shapes and projects 
all these assumptions to the surface ? This, conscious- 
ly or unconsciously, but this certainly — that Herbert 
Spencer is the most religious man that the world has 
ever seen. In his view alone, of all mankind's, the true 
religion is perfectly represented. Not Moses and the 
prophets, not Jesus Christ himself nor his apostles, 
not the fathers nor the reformers, not Buddha nor 
Confucius, not Zoroaster nor Mohammed, approached 
the true knowledge of religion, which now, at last, has 
been attained by this modern Englishman. All were 
in error. The impiety of the pious is expressly de- 
nounced by Mr. Spencer. The results of what he calls 
science are more religious than religion. In short, the 
whole dust-heap of the world's religions has been sift- 
ed, and its one inconsiderable and unnoticed item of 
value has been detected; and he who recognizes and 
holds that, may, should, cast all the rest away, and he 
will be the real possessor of religion— and that man is 
Mr. Spencer. All that the world imperfectly and dim- 
ly aspired after, in its sublimest experiences, has been 
clearly disclosed and realized in the ontology of Mr. 
Spencer." 

The writer here comments upon the attempt 
of Mr. Spencer to reduce all religious ideas to 
the consciousness of unknowable existence. 

"And am I in a world, and have I a nature which, 
according to Mr. Spencer himself, points with inevita- 
ble, inexorable logic to a supreme, all-embracing Pow- 
er, of whom I yet am bound by religious duty to ab- 
jure utterly all knowledge? A most monstrous per- 
version 

"I cannot but know, I cannot but believe that I 
know something of God in every thing I know. Spen- 
cer himself calls him the power which the universe 



96 
tnaniftsts to us, the Ultimate Cause, the Ultimate Ex 
| am surrounded on every hand by themeth- 
i his manifestation; my very existence is made 
up of them. I am myself but one of these methods of 
the divine manifestation. How can he be in any sense 
manifested, it he is in every sense utterly inscruta- 
Nay, all that is vast, transcendent in Nature, 
teaches me that he is glorious; all the objects that 
swell my bosom with emotions of beauty, grandeur, 
and sublimity, teach me that beauty, grandeur and 
sublimity belong to the divine nature; all that stretches 
out into the illimitable— and what smallest object does 
not V — testifies of his infinity." 



T. H. ArwATra, in the Princeton Review. 
— In the Review for April, 1865, appeared an ar- 
ticle entitled "Herbert Spencer's Philosophy — 
Atheism, Pantheism, and Materialism." 

The New Philosophy is antagonized as being 
Atheistic. Speaking of the relativity of knowl- 
edge, the writer says: 

"This relativity of knowledge is perfectly consistent 
with a true and genuine knowledge of things as they re- 
ally are. Not necessarily that we know all pertaining 
to them. Much remains unknown by the most accom- 
plished botanist about the merest blade of grass. But 
what in the due use of our faculties we do know, we 
know truly. Otherwise we do not know it at all. Not 
to know truly, is not to know at all." 

The writer quotes from Spencer the follow- 
ing: 

-The common notion that there is a line of demar- 
• ii reason and instinct, has no foundation 
whatever in fact."— [Psy., p. 572. 

i the following: 



97 

"There is a series of insensible steps by which brute 
rationality may pass into human rationality/' — [Ibid, 
p. 573. 

From these and other doctrines contained in 
the New Philosophy, Mr. Atwater concludes 
that it is a system of Atheism. 



Professor Wynn. — While Professors You- 
mans, Fiske, and other admirers of Spencer 
look upon his philosophy as a system of Theism, 
many other writers consider it decidedly Athe- 
istic. 

For instance, Professor W. H Wynn, of the 
State Agricultural College of Ames, Iowa, in the 
seventh volume of the Lutheran Quarterly, 
w r rites thus: 

"Evolution and correlation are with him [Spencer] 
the key wherewith all the mysteries of the universe 
are unlocked. With Darwin conveniently on the one 
hand, and Bain on the other, he threads his way 
through the 'First Principles' of things, through aeons 

of world formations," etc "Nor does he rest 

here. Civilization, with all its network of agencies 
and institutions, its governments, its economies, its 
arts, its philosophies, its religion, ... all proceed 
in accordance with the same inflexible laws which 
rolled the nebulous masses into systems, and in due 
time will resolve them again into their primeval dust. 
It is noticeable that, amid all these stupendous gener- 
alizations, Mr. Spencer nowhere discovers a presiding 
mind. It is difficult to see how he could suppress the 
inference, but it is the special feature of his system, 
for which he claims the merit of originality, that he 
has been able to build it all up without the hypothesis 
of a God." — ■ — 



98 

So far as these writers undertake to make the 
Atheist ic character of the New Philosophy a mat- 
ter of opprobrium, success can only be realized 
among their religious readers. 

As a matter of fact, they are unquestionably 
correct. 

There is a difference of opinion as to what 
the word "religion" means, or ought to mean. 
But can there be any difference as to the mean- 
ing of the word "God"? Can there be a God 
without attributes and without intelligence? 
Will it for a moment be contended that there 
ever existed on the face of the earth a people 
who believed in and worshiped such a God? 

The Agnostic says he does not know whether 
there is any God or not; that all he knows any 
thing about, outside of his own mind, is the vis- 
ible and tangible universe, and the actions of or- 
ganized beings; in other words, what is called 
phenomena. He is content to study the laws of 
Nature; that is, the methods according to which 
these phenomena co-exist and succeed one an- 
other. 

Mr. Spencer goes further. He says he knows 
of the existence of something else — something 
which originated all this, and which holds it to- 
gether. He positively knows that this some- 
thing exists. He is more certain of its existence 
than he is of the existence of phenomena. He 
does not call it God, because he does not ascribe 
to it the attributes of a God. He does not be- 
in a God unless the Unknowable is God. 



99 
But the Unknowable is not God; therefore he 
does not believe in any God at all. 

Mr. Spencer has not believed in a God since 
he passed out of the theological state of thought 
in which he wrote ''Social Statics." 



Stebbins. — In "Old and New" for October, 
1870, Rufus P. Stebbins, of Ithaca, N. Y., makes 
two points, one on the Unknowable, one on the 
Knowable, of Spencer. 

1. That the same law of consciousness, from which 
Spencer posits the Unknowable Power as First 
Cause, obliges him to posit it as an intelligent First 
Cause. 

2. That his theory of Evolution from a nebulous 
mist, and Dissolution to the same, and again Evolu- 
tion and again Dissolution, kept up in endless succes- 
sion or rhythm, is defective in this: That to sustain 
this theory it would be necessary that all the motion 
should be changed into heat at once, and not in por- 
tions and through vast periods, as would be the case. 
This slow process would counteract and prevent any 
such Dissolution as would be necessary to a re-com- 
mencement of the process of Evolution. 

W. K. Alger. — In the Christian Examiner 
for May, 1808, is a dissertation on Emerson, 
Spencer and Martineau, by W. R. Alger. 

The writer makes a somewhat elaborate at- 
tempt to show that the doctrine of the Unknow- 
able is Theism in its highest form. 

The following paragraph will best illustrate 
his trend of thought: 

"There is, then, no just ground for the belief which 

Loft. 



100 

alarms so many, that the detection of this sophism 
will prove fatal to morality and religion. Refrain from 
thinking the divine Psychology a counterpart of the hu- 
man. Outline Deity no more as a man on the azure 
infinity— paint not his countenance in the mirror of 
imaginative contemplation. Still he is the One without 
whom the Many could not be. Still, we have for our 
guidance his working scheme revealed in the order 
and laws of the creation. The sum of the conditions 
necessary for the perfect evolution and maintenance of 
universal order and life, constitutes a symbol of au- 
thority and a body of rules not to be escaped. What- 
ever else goes or stays, the laws of the whole in itself 
and in relation to the parts, and the laws of the parts 
in themselves and in relation to each other and the 
whole, constitute the grounds of a system of religion 
and morality whose sanctity and sanctions are intrh> 
sic and eternal." 






CHAPTER XV. 

CRITICISMS CONTINUED — BASCOM — LILLY — BAR- 
RY — THE QUARTERLY — FAIRBAIRN. 

John Bascom, LL. D., President of the Univer- 
sity of Wisconsin, in Bibliotheca Sacra for 
October, 1876. 

The writer holds that the evolution doctrine, 
carried to its legitimate results, destroys all lib- 
erty of thought or action. 

"We grant that all which constitutes the dumb show, 
the ostensible marks, of liberty, may be present to hu- 
man action under the interpretation of evolution. 
Motives are there; action follows upon them; the mind 
hesitates between them, decides between them, if you 
will, chooses between them; no symbol of a free action 
fails to appear, and to be apparently operative in its 
appropriate way. If, therefore, the power to use such 
words as 'motives,' 'devices,' 'obedience,' 'disobedience,' 
relieves one from the charge of fatalism, the evolu- 
tionist is not a fatalist; but if by fatalism is meant 
such an inclosing of rational with physical activities, 
such a subordination of both to immutable laws that 
only one result ever has been possible— has been con- 
tained in the forces actually operative- then the evolu- 
tionist is, and must be, a fatalist." 

The doctrine of philosphical necessity, here al- 
luded to by President Bascom, or, to use a word 
(101) 



102 
preferred by some philosophers, philosophical 
"determinism," a doctrine which pervades the 
writings of Mr. Spencer, and is a cardinal fea- 
ture of his philosophy, is one to which no 
thoughtful Positivist or Agnostic will object. 
Whatever difficulty there may be in reconciling 
the doctrine with actual individual freedom, can- 
not affect the validity of the doctrine itself, 
which stands on eternal foundations. 

Nor can there be any reasonable doubt that 
this law, as maintained by Mr. Spencer, applies 
equally to the human mind. What guaranty 
have you that the first friend you meet will not 
thrust a dagger into your bosom? Only this 
guaranty: that the conduct of your friend is 
governed by law. If you knew T all the laws that 
govern his action, you could tell precisely every 
thing he will do. You do not know them all; 
but you know sufficient of them to rest assured 
that he will not do the act referred to so long as 
he remains in his sane mind. 

W. S. Lilly, in the Contemporary Review 
for May, 1889. 

•The sentiment of a First Cause, infinite and abso- 
lute, is, according to Mr. Spencer, the eternal and se- 
cure basis of all religion. The Deity whom, hidden 
more or loss under anthropomorphic disguises, the vo- 
of all creeds ignorantly worship, declares he un- 
to them as the Unknowable. 

ow, if he is right in holding that the Absolute is 
out of relation to thought, he is certainly wrong in af- 
firming a?*?/ consciousness of it Mr. Spencer 

ingenuously confesses, indeed, 'the consciousness of 



103 

something which is yet out of consciousness is myste- 
rious.'— [Prin. of Psy., Sec. 448.] The mystery is akin 
to one of which we read in the history of Earon Mun- 
chausen, who, upon a certain occasion, is related to 
have lifted himself out of a river by his own periwig. 
"Upon Mr. Spencer's own showing, only by going 
out of ourselves, only by transcending what he over 
and over again lays down dogmatically as the impass- 
able limits of intellect, can we attain to any acquaint- 
ance with the Absolute. To affirm that a thing is, and 
that it is unknowable, is a contradiction in terms." 



William Barry, in the Dublin Review for 
April, 1888. — After treating of what the writer 
calls the "destructive stage" of Spencer's philos- 
ophy, he comes to the "constructive stage": 

"His constructive stage opens with one of the most 
curious sentences ever penned by man. 'There still re- 
mains,' he says, at page 87, 'the final question— what 
must we say concerning that which transcends knowl- 
edge ?' Say ? Why, nothing, of course. What is there 
to say except 'I do not know.' But he goes on: 

" 'Are we to rest wholly in the consciousness of phe- 
nomena ? Is the result of inquiry to exclude utterly 
from our minds every thing but the relative ?' Won- 
derful words, and containing some of the most 'ambig- 
uous middles' I have ever seen. Observe, all knowl- 
edge is relative, none can transcend phenomena. Yet 
it is now whispered in our ear that we need not 'utter- 
ly exclude from our minds' what we do not in any way 
know; and that we may 'believe,' though the nature of 
intelligence forbids, I will not say proof, but the very 
conception of that which we are asked to believe. . . . 

"Mr. Spencer is the one conspicuous thinker, at any 
rate, in our time, who has proposed to reconcile relig- 
ion and philosophy by means of an axiom which makes 
both impossible 

"Between thought and being, Mr. Spencer fixes an 



104 

infinite gulf. That which is, he declares to us, cannot 
be known. To him the meeting-place of religion and 
philosophy is not a Divine Intuition, but eternal nes- 
BCience. Thought can solve no problems, not even its 
own; or more truly, it is made to confess that its own 
problem is forever insoluble." 



The Quarterly. — In the Quarterly for Octo- 
ber. 1873, was a review of Spencer's Psycholo- 
gy, then lately published, and of "First Princi- 
ples," published in 1867, and "Essays," in 1868. 

In this article, it is claimed that the new sys- 
tem of philosophy involves the denial of all 
truth. 

The writer says: 

"That we can know nothing but phenomena, that ev- 
ery thing absolute escapes us — as being forever un- 
knowable, and beyond the ken of the human intellect 
—is a cardinal principle with Mr. Spencer, who dis- 
tinctly tells us that all 'objective agencies' productive 
of -subjective affections' are not only 'unknown,' but 
also 'unknowable.' 

"But every philosophy, every system of knowledge, 
must start with the assumption (implied or expressed) 
that something is really 'knowable'— that something is 
absolutely true. . . . Either this system of philos- 
ophy itself is relative and phenomenal only, or it is ab- 
solutely and objectively true. But it must be merely 
phenomenal if every thing known is merely phenome- 
nal. Its value, then, can be only relative and phenom- 
enal that is, it has no absolute value, does not corre- 
spond with objective reality, and is therefore false. 
J>ut if it is false that our knowledge is only relative, 
then some of our knowledge must be absolute; but this 
the fundamental position of the whole phi- 

phy 

very assertor of such a philosophy must be in the 



105 

position of a man who saws across the branch of a tree 
at a point between himself and the trunk," 

This criticism concerning the relativity of 
knowledge, which, as will be seen in a subse- 
quent article, was also very cogently urged by 
Mr. Brownson, has reference only to the doc- 
trine of the relativity of knowledge as held by 
Mr. Spencer; that is, that all knowledge is re- 
lated to the Unknowable Absolute. The criti- 
cism has no application to the relativity of 
knowledge in the sense that all our knowledge 
comes through cognizing the relations between 
phenomena. 

"The best example," says this writer, " that 
can be adduced of pure, unprejudiced, and yet 
learned and cultivated human reason, is fur- 
nished by the mind of Aristotle." 

Principal Fairbairn in the Contemporary 
Review for July, 1881. — Principal A. M. Fair- 
bairn, in criticising the doctrine of the Unknow- 
able, speaks of the consciousness from which 

the Absolute is posited, as follows: 

" For example, Mr. Spencer describes it as 'the ab- 
stract of all thoughts, ideas, or conceptions.' — [First 
Prin., p. 95.] This abstract he represents as formed 'by 
combining successive concepts deprived of their lim- 
its and conditions.' 

"This is certainly not a very luminous remark in the 
mouth of one who had so strenuously reasoned that 
'to conceive was to condition, to limit.' But such as 
it is, there it stands. What does it mean? That by 
removing the conditions or limits under which indi- 
vidual objects are conceived, there remains 'the indef- 



106 

thought' of the unlimited. . . . Abolish the con- 
ditions ami limits under which a given thing is con- 
en veil, and what remains? Has an object (our au- 
thor being witness) any being to thought save as con- 
ditioned or limited? . . . 

"What exists to consciousness is known; speech of 
it is possible only where knowledge is. . . . It is 
impossible to place cause and effect in relation, and 
then declare the cause non-relative. It is as impossi- 
ble to affirm a consciousness of the Absolute, and then 
deelare it unknown. . . . Declare this Power un- 
known, and we must divorce it from all relation to the 
universe and consciousness, to the phenomena alike 
of nature and of mind. . . . Outside thought it is 
impossible for thought to get, for every symbol it uses 
has been framed by its own act and is the result of its 
own processes. 

"While Mr. Spencer grandly dismisses all religious 
systems as 'unthinkable hypotheses,' he does not mean 
man to be without a religion. As he boldly essays the 
reconstruction of the universe, it is but proper that he 
should introduce man to a new deity, and inaugurate 
a religion conformable to the new order. And what 
so lit as that this novel deity should be the extraordi- 
nary entity or non-entity which he has so variously 
named the Unknown, the Unknowable, the Ultimate 
Reality, the Unconditioned Cause, the Inscrutable 
Power, the Absolute, the Non-relative, the Uncondi- 
tioned Being, and the Unknown Force. This poly- 
Domic, extensively described, but indescribable Some- 
what is to be the God of the future, and awe for this 
multifarious and multinomial inscrutability, its relig- 
ion. . . . 

"We cannot reverence, or love, or obey, or worship 
the Unknown; these imply that we know the object, 
and are known to it; that it possesses the moral quali- 
hat can awaken our reverence and love, and com- 
mand our obedience and worship. . . . 



107 

"But let this transfigured religion of omniscient Ag 
nosticism be tried by a simpler test— is it capable of 
realization, of practical embodiment? 

"I confess to a secret regard for the Keligion of Hu- 
manity . It has moral passion and purpose in it, is ca- 
pable of creating and directing enthusiasm for the 
rights and liberties and against the wrongs and op- 
pressions of man. But this religion of Agnosticism, 
this humiliation of the reason before a blank abstrac- 
tion, created by thought to paralyze thought, is but an 
insult to the spirit, an insolent yet feeble mockery of 
the hopes, the loves, the ideals, the inspirations, the 
consolations and reverences, that have been at once 
symbolized for our race and realized in it, by the grand 
old thing named Religion." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

CRITICISMS CONTINUED — REVIEW BY ORESTES A. 
BROWNSON. 

In the Catholic World for February, 1872, ap- 
peared an article entitled "The Cosmic Philoso- 
phy"; the same being a review of the second edi- 
tion (1871) of Spencer's "First Principles." 

The writer summarizes the doctrine of the 
Unknowable, and examines the assertion that all 
knowledge is relative, and the positing of a 
Something underlying phenomena of which they 
are the appearances. "But this Infinite Some- 
thing, which is the reality of the cosmos, is ab- 
solutely unknowable, and even unthinkable. 
How, then, can it be asserted?" 

Both religion and science, says Mr. Spencer, 
agree that the Infinite Keality, or Something, is 
absolutely unknowable— absolutely inscrutable. 
"Consequently the ultimate scientific ideas are 
identical with the ultimate religious ideas. Both 
religion and science are fused together, and rec- 
onciled without any compromise, and the old 
feud between them extinguished in the bosom 
of the infinite unknowable. 

'He makes a solitude and calls it peace.' n 

(108) • 



109 

Tlie cosmists, "by asserting that only phe- 
nomena are cognizable, and subjecting man to 
the common cosmic law, include him in the cos- 
mic phenomena, and make him simply an ap- 
pearance, or manifestation of the unknowable, 
without any real or substantive existence of his 
own. 

"Furthermore, by declaring the phenomenal cannot 
be thought in and by itself without the Infinite Some- 
thing that underlies it as its ground or reality, and then 
declaring that something to be unknowable, unthink- 
able even, the new system declares that there is no 
knowable, and consequently no science or knowledge 
at all. The new system of philosophy, then, reconciles 
science and religion only in a universal negation; that 
is, by really denying both. This can hardly satisfy ei- 
ther a scientist or a Christian." 

"Mr. Spencer starts with the assumption that all re- 
ligions, including Atheism, have a verity in common as 
well as an error. . . . 13 ut what verity is common 
to truth and falsehood, to Theism and Atheism ? The 
verity common to religion and science, that the solu- 
tion of the cosmic mystery is unknowable ? But that 
is not a verity; it is a mere negation, and all truth is 
affirmative." 

The writer rehearses what Mr. Spencer says 
respecting the three suppositions which may be 
made concerning the origin of the universe: 
that it is self-existent, or that it is self-created, 
or that it is created by an external agency. 
"The second supposition he rejects as the pan- 
theistic hypothesis; which is a mistake, for no 
Pantheist or any body else asserts that the uni- 
verse creates itself. The Pantheist denies that 
it is created at all; and the philosopher denies 



110 

that it creates itself; for, since to create is to act, 
self-creation would require the universe to act 
before it existed 

"The first supposition, the self-existence of the uni- 
verse, the author denies, not because the universe is 
manifestly contingent and must have had a beginning, 
and therefore a cause or creator; but because self -ex- 
istence is absolutely inconceivable; an impossible idea. 
He says: . . . 'self -existence is rigorously inconceiva- 
ble, and this holds true, whatever be the nature of the 
object [subject] of which it is predicated. Whoever ar- 
gues that the atheistical hypothesis is untenable be- 
cause it involves the impossible idea of self -existence, 
must perforce admit that the theistical hypothesis is 
untenable if it contains the same impossible idea.' 
But who ever argued that the atheistical hypothesis is 
untenable because it involves the idea of self -exist- 
ence V Atheism is denied because it asserts the self- 
existence of that which cannot be, and is known not 
to be, self-existent. 

"But it is evident that the author rejects alike self- 
existence and creation; that the cosmos is self -exist- 
ent, or that it is created by an independent, self-exist- 
ent and super-cosmic creator. How, then, can he as- 
sert the existence of the cosmos, real or phenomenal, 
at all ? The cosmos either exists or it does not. If it 
does not, that ends the matter. If it does, it must be 
either created or self-existent; for the author rejects 
an infinite series as absurd, and self-creation as only 
an absurd form of expressing self-existence. But as 
the author denies self-existence, whatever the subject 
of which it is predicated, and also the fact of crea- 
tion, it follows rigorously, if he is right, that the cos- 
mos does not exist. The author cannot take refuge in 
his favorite nescio, or say, we do not know the origin 
of the cosmos, for he has positively denied it every 
possible origin; and therefore has, by implication, de- 
nied it all existence. 



Ill 

"The Comtists restrict, in theory, all knowledge to 
sensible things, their mutual relations, dependencies, 
and the conditions and laws of their development 
and progress; but they at least admit that these may 
be objects of science and positively known. But our 
cosmic philosopher denies this, and asserts the relativ- 
ity of all knowledge. . . . But relative knowledge 
[in Mr. Spencer's sense] is simply no knowledge, be 
cause in it nothing is known. . . . The relativity 
of all knowledge, then, is simply the denial of all 
knowledge. It is idle, then, for Mr. Spencer to talk of 
science." 

"Mr. Spencer labors hard to prove the relativity of 
all knowledge. He either proves it or he does not. If 
he does not, he has no right to assert it; if he does, he 
disproves it at the same time. If the proof is not ab- 
solute, it does not prove it; if it is absolute, then it is 
not true that all knowledge is relative; for the proof 
must be absolutely known, or it cannot be alleged. 
We either know that all knowledge is relative, or we 
do not. If we do not, no more need be said; if we do 
know it, then it is false, because the knowledge of the 
relativity of knowledge is itself not relative. The as- 
sertion of the relativity of all knowledge, therefore, 
contradicts and refutes itself. .No man can doubt 
that he doubts, or that doubt is doubt, and therefore 
universal doubt or skepticism is impossible, and not 
even assertable. The same argument applies to the 
pretense that all knowledge is relative. 

"Rejecting creation, the author cannot assert the re- 
lation of cause and effect; rejecting cause and effect, 
he cannot assert even the cosmic phenomena. They 
are not able to stand on their own bottom, and there- 
fore not at all, unless the Something of which they are, 
as he says, manifestations, is a cause producing and 
sustaining them. AVe submit, then, that Mr. Spencer's 
doctrine of the unknowable, and the relativity of all 
knowledge, estops him from asserting any thing as 



112 

knowable, for it really denies all the knowable and all 
the real— omne scibile et omne reale" 

In the second part of Mr. Spencer's work on 
"The Knowable," "the cosmos is a ceaseless evo- 
lution; is, so to speak, in a state of perpetual 
Mux and reflux, in which diffusion of one group 
of phenomena is followed by the birth of anoth- 
er, in endless rotation, or life from death, and 
death from life. Dissolution follows concentra- 
tion 'in eternal alternation,' or both go on to- 
gether. 

"This is not a new doctrine, but substantially the 
doctrine of a school of Greek philosophers, warred 
against both by Plato and Aristotle, that all things are 
in a state of ceaseless motion, of growth and decay, in 
which corruption proceeds from generation, and gen- 
eration from corruption, in which death is born of life, 
and life is born of death. Our cosmic philosophers on- 
ly repeat the long since exploded errors of the old cos- 
mists. But pass over this. 

"The author is treating of the knowable. We ask 
him, then, how he contrives to know that there is any 
such evolution as he asserts. . . . Does he know 
that he is only a certain concentration of matter and 
force resulting from a certain diffusion or loss of mo- 
tion ? ('an he not only think but prove it? But all 
proof, all demonstration, as all reasoning, nay, sensible 
intuition itself, depends on the principle of cause and 
effect; for, unless we can assert that the sensation 
within is caused by some object without, that affects 
the sensible organism, we can assert nothing outside 
of us, not even a phenomenon or external appearance. 
How does the author know, or can he know, that he 
differs from the ape only in the different combination 
of matter, motion and force? 

"Mr. Spencer, in his work on 'Biology,' asserts that 



113 

life results from the mechanical, chemical, and elec- 
trical arrangement of the particles of matter. If this 
were so, it would, on the author's own principles, ex- 
plain nothing. It would be only saying that a certain 
group of phenomena is accompanied by another group, 
which we call life, but not that there is any causal re- 
lation between them. That the supposed arrangement 
of the particles of matter originates the life, Mr. Spen- 
cer cannot assert without the intuition of cause, and 
causes he either denies or banishes to the unknowable. 

"Mr. Spencer protests against being regarded as an 
Atheist, for he denies the self -existence of the universe, 
and neither affirms nor denies the existence of God. 
But Atheist means simply no-tlieist; and, if he does 
not assert that God is, he certainly is an Atheist. It is 
not necessary, in order to be an Atheist, to make a pos- 
itive denial of God. . . . What is asserted is not 
God, and is not pretended to be the God of theism, but 
the reality or substance of the cosmos, and indistin- 
guishable from it. It is the real, as the phenomena 
are the apparent, cosmos. 

"The author denies that he is a Pantheist, for he de- 
nies the hypothesis of self -creation; but, if he is not a 
Pantheist, it is only because he does not call the un- 
knowable infinite power or being which he asserts as 
the reality of the cosmos, that is, the real cosmos, by 
the name of God. Dens; or Theos. But, asserting that 
power as the reality or substance of the cosmic phe- 
nomena, is precisely what is meant by Pantheism. . . 

"The only difference between Atheism and Pan- 
theism is purely verbal. The Atheist calls the reality 
asserted, cosmos or Nature, and the Pantheist calls it 
God; but both assert one and the same thing.'' 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Criticisms by Professor Birks and Monsieur 
Littre. 

Professor Birks. — "First Principles" was 
criticised in 1876, by Professor Thomas Rawson 
Birks, of Cambridge, England. 

The Professor criticizes severely some of Mr. 
Spencer's statements in regard to the forces of 
attraction and repulsion, denying that matter 
can both attract and repel by the same law. 

Quoting from Mr. Spencer the statement that 
"the widest, deepest, and most certain of all 
facts is that the Power which the universe man- 
ifests to us, is wholly inscrutable," the Professor 
thus comments thereon: 

"Such, briefly, is the sum of the whole doctrine; and 
it contains five or six self-contradictions. . . . That 
it exists; that it is not an attribute, but either thing or 
person; that it is one person or thing, and not many; 
that it is distinct from the universe which manifests 
it; that it is really manifested by the universe; that it 
is a Power and not a mere Impotence; are six truths 
affirmed concerning it in the very definition which 
speaks of it as utterly inscrutable and unknown. 

(114) 



115 

"And if we add to these the statements which pres- 
ently follow, that it stands in a relation of contrast to 
the Relative, (p. 91.) that it is 'the persistent body cf a 
thought to w r hich we can give no shape, and the object 
of an irresistible belief,' (p. 93.) that it is 'a something, 
the concept of which is formed by combining many 
concepts, deprived of their limits and conditions/ (p. 
95,) that it is 'an actuality lying behind appearances/ 
(p. 97,) that it is in such close relation to the relative 
realities, that every change in one may be viewed as 
representing an answering change in the other, so that 
the relatives and absolutes are practically equivalent, 
(p. 162,) and finally, that more or less constant relations 
in the absolute beyond consciousness are matter of ex- 
perience, and generate like relations in our states of 
consciousness, (Test of Truth, p. 548,) we may see the 
force of Mr. Mill's satirical remark, that the doctrine 
recognizes as attainable a surprising and almost pro- 
digious amount of knowledge of the Unknowable." — 
[Modern Phys. Fat., etc., pp. 20, 27. 

Coming to the department of Physics, and the 
discussion of the laws of Force. Professor Birks 
gives eleven different hypotheses of scientists in 
regard to the composition of matter. 

The Professor affirms that all these theories 
agree in offering a hypothesis more or less defi- 
nite, and capable of becoming the subject of 
mathematical reasoning and calculation. 

"The doctrine laid down in the 'First Principles' has 
a character precisely opposite. It is a physical theory 
composed simply of abstract, metaphysical terms, that 
may be applied indifferently to a thousand varying hy- 
potheses, and cannot therefore advance us a single 
step in the path of genuine discovery. But it has a 
still worse fault. It is not only vague and indefinite, 
but self-contradictory." 



116 

Professor Birks points out seventeen maxims 
upon which he says Mr. Spencer insists in his 
theory of the constitution of matter. After spe- 
cifying these in detail, he says that all but two 
are untrue, self-contradictory, or absurd. 

Quoting from Mr. Spencer the following: 
"Matter cannot be conceived except as manifest- 
ing forces of attraction and repulsion; we are 
obliged to think of all objects as made up of 
parts that attract and repel each other;" Profes- 
sor Birks proceeds: 

"Here we have been told, just before, that w r e can- 
not decide whether the phenomena of change arise 
from both attractions and repulsions, or from one of 
these two kinds of force only. And now we are told 
the exact reverse, that we are obliged to believe in that 
duality of the action of force which has just been pro- 
nounced to be beyond the range of our knowledge, and 
to be inconceivable. This constant oscillation and 
confusion of thought is most wearisome and vexatious 
for any reader who desires really to gain insight into 
the questions in debate."— [Mod. Ph. F., p. 208. 

The passage in "First Principles" concerning 
central forces had, previous to this attack, been 
severely criticised. It was omitted in the later 
editions. 

In an Appendix to one of these editions 
of "First Principles," Mr. Spencer explains 
why he had omitted the passage in question 
from the later editions. He says that the pass- 
age was suppressed to remove a stumbling-block 
out of the way of future readers, and to deprive 
opponents of the opportunity of evading the 



117 
g( neral argument of the chapter by opening: a 
side-issue on a point not essential to its argu- 
ment. 

Moreover. Mr. Spencer denies that he assert- 
ed that there were any central forces of matter 
acting or manifesting themselves in the way 
stated. He says that what was included in his 
rtion. was. 

"That gin n a central force, and such is the law accord- 
ing to which it will vary. Nothing is said concerning 
the existence <>i' any central for 

And in illustration of his argument, he asks: 

" When I assert that of the heat radiating in all di- 
rections from a point, the quantity falling on a given 
sun jiiare of the dis- 

tance in. do 1 thereby assert the necessary ex- 

istence of the heat which conforms to this law?" 

An ordinary thinker would reply: 

M Yee, you do. 5fouare here referring to a law which 
ippoeedtohaye been established from observations 

and experiments on the action or manifestation of 
heat. If there is no heat, there is no law of heat. If 
yon assert the law, you by necessary implication assert 
the existence of heat. " 

Because Professor Birks so understood him, 
Mr. Spencer thinks he did him great injustice. 
He says: 

"My proposition— central forces vary universally as 
the squares of the distances, he actually transforms 
into the proposition— there is a cosmical force which 
varies inversely as the squares of the distances." 

Well, was not Mr. Spencer w r riting about a 
cosmical force? Whatever might be his views 



118 

as to the nature of force, he here, by necessary 
implication, asserts its existence. 

His argument that the statement of a law in 
physics does not necessarily imply the existence 
of that of which the law is asserted, is as if he 
were to say, when speaking of the evolution of 
society: "I do not mean by this to assert that 
there is any such thing as a society; but only, 
if there were a society, this is the way in which 
it would be evolved." Or, "Given a society, and 
this would be the law of its evolution." 



CRITICISM BY MONS. LITTEE. 

Mons. E. Littre, the eminent French philolo- 
gist and philosopher, in his preface to the 
'Cours de Philosophie Positive" of Auguste 
Comte, has occasion to refer to the philosophy 
of Mr. Spencer. 

He says that M. Laugel considers Spencer as 
belonging to the Positivist school, while at the 
same time speaking of him as a metaphysician. 

"These two qualifications," says M. Littre, 
"are incompatible. He who is a metaphysician 
is not a positivist — he who is a positivist is not 
a metaphysician." 

M. Littre quotes M. Laugel as saying of 
Mr. Spencer that "he divides the objects of 
human thought into two categories: that 
which can be known, and that which cannot 
be known; the Knowable and the Unknowable." 
(Ce qui peut etre connu, et ce qui ne peut pas 



119 
etre connu; le cognoscible et rincognoscible.) 
M. Laugel then states the doctrine of reconcili- 
ation of religion and science. 

Commenting on these extracts, M. Littre 
says: 

"There is confusion here, so that one cannot, I fear, 
keep his word either with faith or science. The confu- 
sion is in the assimilation made between the object of 
faith and the result of science. 

"To my mind." continues M. Littre, "a union which 
brings together the two Unknowables under one head 
is more nominal than real; the Unknowable of faith 
being the object itself of faith, and the Unknowable of 
science being a limit at which one is stopped. To be 
an object, or to be a limit, are two ideas entirely dis- 
tinct. (Etre objet ou etre limite sont deux notions 
tn's distinctes.) . . . 

"The unknowable is really the unknown; and upon 
the unknown no one can base anything. (Sur Vincon- 
nu mil n^ put Hen fonder.) From the side of the 
Knotrable has come progress, and consequently its 
social regime." (("est du cote du cognoscible qu'ont 
passe* les progres et par consequent leur regime so- 
cial.) 

"From all time, faith has determined the Unknowa- 
ble; that is to say, has taught the beginning and end 
of things. This instruction should preserve its char- 
acter or lose it. 

"If it should preserve it, since science declares the 
Unknowable indeterminable, the result would be just 
what it really is, division and conflict. The reconcili- 
ation which Mr. Spencer supposes to come from the 
Unknowable cannot be effected. 

"If, on the contrary, faith renounces its determina- 
tions, its instruction loses its character; it becomes con- 
founded with that of science. There is, not conciliation, 
but absorption. Then it can complain that there has 



120 

been given it an empty word in place of its realities; 
(un mot vide en place de ses realites;) and that in the 
variable limit which science designates the unknowa- 
ble, it does not obtain even a faint glimmering of 
what it believes and hopes. 

".Mr. Spencer has well perceived how he has been 
led to determine the Unknowable; calling it that pow- 
er of which the universe is the manifestation ; while 
declaring inconsequent and contradictory any asser- 
tions whatever relative to its nature, its acts, its mo- 
tives. Nothing shows better than this the impossibil- 
ity of the attempted reconciliation. (Rien ne montre 
mieux que ceci Timpossibilit^ de la conciliation ten- 
tee.) .... 

"The attempt to confound the Unknowable of sci- 
ence with that of faith has, then, suffered shipwreck (a 
done £choue)." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

CRITICISMS CONCLUDED. — WILFRED WARD — ST. 
GEORGE MIVART — A. J. BALFOUR. 



THE CLOTHES OF RELIGION. 



Wilfred Ward, in the National Review 
for June, 1884. — Referring to the discussion 
between Messrs. Spencer and Harrison, the writ- 
er, after quoting from one of Mr. Harrison's ar- 
ticles, says: 

"This is, to my mind, quite unanswerable common 
sense. Mr. Spencer has no right— has, indeed, no log- 
ical power— to have his cake after he has eaten it. . . . 
To suppose that by dressing up nothing he can make 
it something— ... to conceive that out of the state- 
ments 'nothing can be known,' and a sort of a something 
exists beyond our knowledge, we can evolve the abso- 
lutely certain existence of an unknowable object of 
worship, consisting of an Infinite and Eternal Energy 
whence all things proceed, is to introduce a new spe- 
cies of Evolution which Mr. Spencer himself could 
hardly sanction w r hen in his right mind. The leap is 
very great; and Darwin confesses that 'Natura non 
facit saltum." (Nature makes no leaps.) 

The writer claims that the Religion of Hu- 

(121) 



122 

manity, advocated by Harrison, is no better than 
the Religion of the Unknowable of Spencer. 

"The truth seems to be that these philosophers, hav- 
ing conspired together to kill all religion — the very es- 
sence of which is a reallv existing personal God, 
known to exist, and accessible to the prayers of His 
creatures — and having, as they suppose, accomplished 
their work of destruction and put Religion to death, 
have proceeded to divide its clothes between them. 

"The saying of the Psalmist, which was applied to 
other slayers of their God, may be used of these also— 
'Diviserunt sibi vestimenta mea et super vestem meam 
miserunt sortem.' (They parted my garments among 
them and upon my vesture they cast lots.) 

"The ideas of Infinity, Eternity, and Power, which 
have hitherto clothed the Deity, fell to Mr. Spencer's 
share; together with the correlative emotion of awe. 
Mr. Harrison came in for a larger quantity. . . . Bro- 
therly love, the improvement, moral, mental and ma- 
terial, of our fellow-men, self-sacrifice for the general 
good, devotion to an ideal — here are some of the 
'clothes of religion' which Mr. Harrison and the Posit- 
ivists have appropriated. . . . 

"Mr. Spencer dresses up the Unknowable with Infin- 
ity, Eternity, and Energy; Mr. Harrison dresses up 
Humanity with Brotherly Love and the worship of an 
Ideal. But the clothes won't fit. The world may be 
duped for a time, and imagine that where the garments 
are, there the reality must be; but this cannot last. It 
is not the cowl that makes the monk, and it is not the 
clothes that make religion." 



St. George Mivart in the Dublin Ke- 
view. — An elaborate and exhaustive criticism of 
Spencer's Psychology appeared in the Dublin 
Review at various times during the years extend- 



123 
ing from 1874 to 1880. It consisted of nine 
parts, and was entitled "An Examination of Mr. 
Herbert Spencer's Psychology." Part I was 
published in the October number, 1874, and Part 
IX in the January number, 1880. 

Mr. Mivart antagonizes Spencer's Psychology 
in important points. 

In the fourth article, published in the April 
number, 1877, in closing his criticism on the first 
volume, he says: 

"This first volume, therefore, full as it is of ingen- 
ious and suggestive physiological thoughts, and admir- 
able as a thesaurus of explanations of brute psychisms, 
leaves the arguments for the radical distinctness of 
intellect from sensation, not only unimpaired, but re- 
inforced." 

After reviewing the first part of the second 
volume, he says: 

"At the end of these eight chapters, we must, then, 
(as it appears to me,) recognize the futility of Mr. Spen- 
cer's attempt to reduce the reasoning process to even 
an intellectual reflex comparison of relations as such; 
a fortiori, then, he fails to reduce it to that sort of au- 
tomatic action which he seems alone to recognize." 



The Foundations of Belief: By Rt. Hon. A. 

J. Balfour, London, 1895. — "Where the physi- 
cist assumes actual atoms, and motions, and 
forces, Mill saw nothing but 'permanent possi- 
bilities of sensation,' and Spencer knows no- 
thing but the 'Unknowable.' " 

Speaking of the Unknowable, Mr. Balfour 
says: 



124 

"For any thing I am here prepared to allege to the 
contrary, this may be real enough; but unfortunately, 
it has not the kind of reality imperatively required by 
science. It is not in space. It is not in time. It pos- 
sesses neither mass nor extension, nor is it capable of 
motion. Its very name implies that it eludes the 
grasp of thought, and cannot be caught up into formu- 
lae. Whatever purpose, therefore, such an 'object' may 
subserve in the universe of things, it is as useless as a 
'permanent possibility' itself to provide subject-matter 
for scientific treatment. 

"If these [the 'Unknowable' of Spencer and the 'per- 
manent possibilities of sensation' of Mill] be all that 
truly exist outside the circle of impressions and ideas, 
then is all science turned to foolishness, and evolution 
stands confessed as a mere figment of the imagination. 
Man, or rather 'I', become not merely the centre of the 
world, but am the world. Beyond me and my ideas 
there is either nothing, or nothing that can be known. 
The problems about which we disquiet ourselves in vain, 
the origin of things and the modes of their develop- 
ment, the inner constitution of matter and its relations 
to mind, are questions about nothing, interrogations 
shouted into the void. The baseless fabric of the sci- 
ences, like the great globe itself, dissolves at the touch 
of theories like these, leaving not a rack behind.'' — 
[Foundations of Belief, pp. 125, 126. 

Commenting on wliat Mr. Spencer says as to 
the conclusions of Science, Mr. Balfour quotes: 

"To ask whether science is substantially true, is [he 
observes] much like asking whether the sun gives 
light ?"— [First Frin., p. 19.] It is, I admit, very much 
like it. But then, on Mr. Spencer's principles, does the 
sun give light? After due consideration, we shall 
have to admit, 1 think, that it does not. For it is a 
statement which, if made intelligently, not only in- 
volves the comprehension of matter, space, time, and 



125 

force, which are, according to Mr. Spencer, all incom- 
prehensible; but there is the further difficulty that, if 
his system is to be believed, 'what we are conscious of 
as properties of matter, even down to weight and resist- 
ance, are but subjective affections produced by object- 
ive agencies which are unknown and unknowable.'— 
[Prin. of Psy., Vol. II, p. 49?. 

" It w T ould seem, therefore, either that the sun is a 
'subjective affection,' in which case it can hardly be 
said to 'give light'; or, it is 'unknown,' and 'unknowa- 
ble,' in which case no assertion respecting it can be re- 
garded as supplying us with any very flattering speci- 
men of scientific certitude."— [Foundations of Belief r 
p. 295. 

To this Mr. Spencer replies by saying that 
Mr. Balfour holds the same view; citing page 
284 of Balfour's "Foundations of Belief." 

But all that Mr. Balfour there says is that 
when two friends "read together the same de- 
scription of a landscape," it does not "stir within 
them precisely the same quality of sentiment, or 
evoke precisely the same subtle associations;" 
arguing thence that if no representation of the 
splendors of Nature can produce in us any per- 
fect identity of admiration, we cannot expect 
the definitions of theology or science to produce 
in us any perfect identity of belief. 

It certainly seems difficult to discover, in any 
thing that is here said by Mr. Balfour, sufficient 
to justify the statement that he holds the same 
view as Spencer in regard to "ultimate scientific 
ideas." The point was whether Mr. Spencer, in 
accordance with the principles of his philoso- 
phy, had sufficiently recognized the objective 



126 

existence of the material world. There is assur- 
edly no admission that he had done so in what 
Balfour had said concerning the different effect 
which the same description of a landscape would 
have upon two individuals. 

So far from agreeing with Mr. Spencer in his 
view as to the entire unreliability of sense per- 
ceptions, Mr. Balfour says: 

"By the very constitution of our being we seem 
practically driven to assume a real world in corre- 
spondence with our ordinary judgments of perception/' 
— [Foundations of Belief, p. 255. 

The fact that two persons are differently af- 
fected by the contemplation of a landscape, so 
far from proving that the landscape itself is 
merely a subjective affection of each, or a state 
of his consciousness, proves directly the reverse: 
that the landscape is there, and that the two 
persons are differently affected by it because 
they are themselves differently constituted. On 
the other theory there would be two landscapes, 
while now there is but one. They are both 
looking at the same landscape. Where one sees 
water the other sees water; where one sees trees 
the other sees trees; and where one sees a moun- 
tain the other sees a mountain; though these ob- 
jects, either in themselves or when grouped to- 
gether, may make a somewhat different impres- 
sion upon each. 

The fact that the two persons see at the same 
time and in the same place, what they find in con- 
versation to be in its outline and general fea- 



127 
tures the same landscape, proves that the 
landscape itself, as they know it, exists or ob- 
tains beyond the consciousness of either. They 
know it was there before they saw it, and they 
know that after they shall have ceased to look 
upon it, it will still remain in the same portion 
of universal space. 

The criticisms quoted in this work, taken to- 
gether, constitute a symposium of the views of 
some of the best writers and most profound 
thinkers of the latter half of the present century 
— representatives of all shades of opinion, from 
the Positivist and Agnostic to the Deist and the 
Christian; also of both phases of Christian be- 
lief, Catholic and Protestant. 

The few chapters that remain will be devoted 
to an examination of the Spencerian metaphys- 
ical philosophy, with particular reference to the 
doctrine of the Unknowable, and to the claim 
that is made that that doctrine has effected a 
reconciliation between Science and Eeligion. 

In pursuing this examination, the writer hopes 
at least to be able to make his statements intel- 
ligible. Any thing in metaphysics which is rea- 
sonable and true ought to be capable of being 
brought home to the comprehension of every 
careful and thoughtful reader. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



SPACE AND TIME — CONSCIOUSNESS. 



SPACE AND TIME. 

Speaking of space and time, Mr. Spencer 
says: 

"To say that space and time exist objectively, is to 
say that they are entities. The assertion that they are 
non-entities is self -destructive: non-entities are non- 
existences; and to allege that non-existences exist ob- 
jectively, is a contradiction in terms."— [First Princi- 
ples, Sec. 15. 

Since, therefore, we 
" Cannot conceive of space and time as entities, and 
are equally disabled from conceiving them as either 
the attributes of entities or non-entities," and since "we 
are compelled to think of them as existing and yet can- 
not bring them within those conditions under which 
existences are represented in thought, the conclusion 
is that space and time are wholly incomprehensible." — 
[Ibid. 

Is there not an unnecessary difficulty here 
raised by the ambiguous use of the terms "exist" 
and "existences"? Existence is here used as sy- 
nonymous with entity; being; substance; and a 
(128) 



129 

non-entity is declared to be a non-existence. 
But ''exist" has another meaning equally legiti- 
mate, that is, "to manifest itself; to continue to 
be." In this sense space and time exist object- 
ively. They are manifested; they continue to 
be. 

Again: 

"Of space and time we cannot assert either limita- 
tion or the absence of limitation." 

Is this correct? On the contrary, do we not, 
every day, in the ordinary transactions of life, 
assert limitation both of space and time? Of 
space we assert limitation every time we make a 
measurement of any portion of the space about 
us, for any purpose whatever. And of time we 
assert limitation whenever we speak of a year, a 
day, or an hour. If the statement had been, 
"When we speak of space and time generally, 
we do not assert either limitation or the absence 
of limitation," it would have been correct. But 
that would have been another proposition. 

Once more: 

"Space and time are wholly incomprehensible. " We 
are compelled to think of them as existing, and yet 
cannot bring them within those conditions under 
which existences are represented in thought." 

What is the difficulty in comprehending a lim- 
ited portion of space or a limited period of time? 
When thinking of space, as John Stuart Mill 
justly remarks: 

"We leave to it all that belongs to it as space— its 
three dimensions, with their geometrical properties. 
... If an object which has these well marked posi- 



130 

tive attributes, is unthinkable because it has a nega- 
tive attribute as well, the number of thinkable objects 
must be remarkably small." — [Examination of Sir W. 
Hamilton's Philosophy. 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 

Nor is Mr. Spencer always exact in his defini- 
tions. Thus he says: 

"Consciousness implies perpetual change and the per- 
petual establishment of relations between its success- 
ive phases." — [First Prin., Sec. 19. 

Here is an ambiguity in the use of the word 
"perpetual," which must have been employed in 
the sense of "continuous" or "successive." 

In the explanations which preceded this state- 
ment, the author had said: 

"Our states of consciousness occur in succession. Is 
this chain of states of consciousness infinite or finite ? 
We cannot say infinite; not only because we have indi- 
rectly reached the conclusion that there was a period 
when it commenced, but also because all infinity is in- 
conceivable — an infinite series included. We cannot 
say finite; for we have no knowledge of either of its 
ends. Go back in memory as far as we may, we are 
wholly unable to identify our first states of conscious- 
ness; the perspective of our thoughts vanishes in a dim 
obscurity where we can make out nothing. Similarly 
at the other extreme. We have no immediate knowl- 
edge of a termination to the series at a future time." — 
[First Prin., Sec. 19. 

Here the author says we cannot say that the 
chain of states of consciousness is infinite, be- 
cause we have reached the conclusion that there 



131 
was a period when it commenced. This is equiv- 
alent to saying, we cannot say that the chain 
of states is infinite because we have reached the 
conclusion that it is finite. Yet in the very 
next sentence he says we cannot say the chain is 
finite, because we have no knowledge of either 
of its ends. But when we "reached the conclu- 
sion" that "there was a period when it com- 
menced," did we not assert a knowledge of one 
of its ends? 

He further says: 

"Go back in memory as far as we may, we are wholly 
unable to identify our first states of consciousness." 

But is that material? Does the existence or 
non-existence of any thing in our experience de- 
pend upon the memory of it? Go back in mem- 
ory as far as we may, we are wholly unable to 
identify the moment of our birth. Therefore 
we were never born. 

That the child has its first states of conscious- 
ness, is manifest from the origin of conscious- 
ness, as given by the author himself. He says: 

"During the first stage of incipient intelligence, be- 
fore the feelings produced by intercourse with the out- 
er world have been put in order, there ore no cogni- 
tions, strictly so called; and, as every infant shows us, 
these slowly emerge out of the confusion of unfolding 
consciousness as fast as the experiences are arranged 
into groups— as fast as the most frequently repeated 
sensations, and their relations to each other, become 
familiar enough to admit of their recognition as such 
or such, whenever they recur."— [First Prin., Sec. 24. 

Here is an admirable, scientific statement of 



132 

the origin of consciousness. At first, there is 
none. Then, it is gradually unfolded, like a 
flower. Is there any difficulty here in seeing a 
first state of consciousness? And because the 
individual, in after years, cannot remember, or 
is not aware of, the first state of consciousness, 
does that prove there was none? 

Not only does Mr. Spencer show the origin 
of consciousness in the child, but he traces the 
origin of consciousness in animals. 

But when Mr. Sidgwick called attention to a 
passage wherein Spencer, in describing "that 
differentiation of the physical from the psychical 
life" which accompanies advancing organization 
and advancing development of the nervous sys- 
tem, had said, "as nervous integration advances 
there must result an unbroken series of the 
changes" constituting psychical life — "there 
must arise a consciousness," Mr. Spencer says: 
"Now, I admit, that here is an apparent incon- 
sistency. I ought to have said that there must 
result an unbroken series of these changes, 
which, taking place in the nervous system of a 
highly organized creature, gives coherence to its 
conduct, and along with which we assume con- 
sciousness, because consciousness goes along 
with coherent conduct in ourselves." Seeing 
that the tracing of the origin of consciousness 
thus distinctly would not consist with the doc- 
trine of the Unknowable, which he had based up- 
on a dim or vague consciousness — for, if the 
doctrine is placed upon this basis, animals also 



133 

should have a consciousness of the Unknowable 
—he here, for the first time, implies doubt or 
uncertainty as to the existence of consciousness 
in animals. 

But the existence of consciousness in animals 
cannot be ignored by Mr. Spencer, who says 
(Psychology, p, 572) , that the common notion 
that there is a line of demarcation between rea- 
son and instinct has no foundation whatever in 
fact; and (ibid. p. 573) that there is a series of 
insensible steps by which brute rationality may 
pass into human rationality. 

Nor is animal consciousness habitually ig- 
nored by Mr. Spencer. Thus, in his criticism 
of Bain on the Emotions and the Will, he speaks 
several times of the consciousness of birds. — 
[Essays, Vol. I, p. 256. 

So, also, in his discussion with Mr. Marti- 
neau, he speaks of the newly hatched chicken as 
having "feeling, and therefore consciousness." 
[lb. p. 378. 

To come back to the subject of states of con- 
sciousness. Mr. Spencer says we cannot say 
that the chain of states of consciousness is in- 
finite and we cannot say that it is finite. But if 
there be any such chain, it must be either finite 
or infinite in duration. Hence this is equivalent 
to asserting that we cannot say that there is any 
chain of consciousness at all. 

Again, he says we cannot say that the 
chain of states (of consciousness) is finite, be- 
cause we do not know the other end of the chain. 



134 

"We have no immediate knowledge of a termination 
to the series at a future time." 

Neither have we any immediate knowledge of 
any future state of consciousness. And if the 
fact that we do not know in advance the last 
state of consciousness, proves that there is to be 
no last state of consciousness; then the fact that 
we do not know in advance any future state of 
consciousness, proves that there is to be no fu- 
ture state of consciousness. 

The author follows up these statements with a 
formal argument to prove that there can be no 
last state of consciousness. Thus: 

"If ceaseless change of state is the condition on 
which alone consciousness exists, then when the sup- 
posed last state has been reached by the completion of 
the preceding change, change has ceased; therefore 
consciousness has ceased; therefore the supposed last 
state is not a state of consciousness at all; therefore 
there can be no last state of consciousness."— [First 
Prin., Sec. 19. 

Whatever apparent validity there may be in 
this very abstruse argument, is owing to the use 
of the term "ceaseless." Strike that out, and 
substitute "successive," and the whole argument 
falls to the ground. The changes in the states 
of consciousness will continue to be success- 
ive so long as consciousness lasts; which is all 
that can be expected. When the nervous 
system on which consciousness depends for 
its existence, gives way, then consciousness 
ceases. 



135 

In his "Principles of Biology." Vol. I. Sec. 1, 
Mr. Spencer speaks of nervous disturbances 
which are communicated to the chief nervous 
centre, and "there constitute consciousness." 
These disturbances are caused by the changes 
in the relations of phenomena, which produce 
sensations of touch and pressure, of heat and 
cold, etc. 

Does not the consciousness thus produced 
cease when the nervous system is destroyed? 
Is it claimed that there is, in the Spencerian 
philosophy, any form of consciousness that does 
not depend upon the nervous system? If not, 
then what is the difficulty in arriving at the last 
state of consciousness? 

What validity can there be in an argument 
framed for the purpose of disproving a fact 
which is not only attested by the experience of 
all mankind, but which necessarily results from 
the author's own philosophy? 

When a person has arrived at the last stage 
of his conscious existence, then is his last state 
of consciousness. Though he may not know 
that it is the last, yet it nevertheless is, in fact, 
his last state of consciousness. No fine-spun, 
metaphysically constructed argument can over- 
throw this plain fact, the truth of which is 
known to all the world. We should hesitate 
to believe that this ingenious argument had 
been made in aid of the doctrine of the immor- 
tality of the soul. That doctrine ought to be 
permitted to stand or fall on its own merits, 



136 

without the adventitious assistance of reasoning 
which seems strangely out of place when we con- 
sider the system of philosophy in which it ap- 
pears. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE UNKNOWABLE. — FIRST CAUSE. 

We cannot rightly affirm the existence of any 
thing unless we know that it exists. And we 
must know not only that it exists, but that it ex- 
ists in relation, since we know nothing except as 
it exists in relation. But if it exists in relation, 
then it is knowable. To say of any thing, there- 
fore, that it exists, is to say that it is knowable; 
and to say that it is unknowable is to say that we 
cannot affirm that it exists. 

Again: 

The Unknowable is also unthinkable. It is 
trebly unthinkable. — [First Principles, Sec. 24. 

The fact that any other hypothesis is unthink- 
able — cannot be formulated in thought — is, in 
the mind of Mr. Spencer, a fatal objection. The 
Atheistic theory of the origin of the universe is 
rejected for that reason. The Theistic theory is 
rejected for the same reason. Pantheism, for the 
same reason. "It is not," he says, "a question of 
probability or credibility, but of conceivability." 
—[First Prin., Sec. 11. 

(137) 



138 

" Each of these theories is equally vicious, 
equally unthinkable." — [Ibid. 

In the first volume of the "Principles of Biol- 
ogy," Sec. 171, speaking of the Evolution hy- 
pothesis, as opposed to the hypothesis of the 
special creation of living beings, the author says 
of the latter, "It is not even a thinkable hypoth- 
esis;" and speaks of it as being, for that reason, 
"illusive." Of the former, on the contrary, he 
says: 

"Instead of being a mere pseud- idea, we saw that it 
admitted of elaboration into a definite conception— so 
showing its legitimacy as a hypothesis." 

In Section 118, also, of that work, writing on 
the same subject, he says of the special creation 
hypothesis, that it is illusive because of the im- 
possibility of realizing it in thought. 

Yet the doctrine of the Unknowable, which is 
confessedly open to the same objection, he not 
only considers a legitimate hypothesis, but asks 
us to accept as "the most certain of all truths." 

FIRST CAUSE. 

The Unknowable is posited as First Cause. 
It is said that persistence of force is the highest 
generalization of science; and that known force, 
or "force as known to us," which persists, is but 
the symbol or correlative of an unknown force, 
which unknown force is posited as First Cause 
of all phenomena. 

1. What is meant by persistence of force as 
the highest generalization of science? 



139 

Force is not an entity. Force is an attribute. 

Persistence of force is the persistence with 
which matter, whether at rest or in motion, man- 
ifests certain degrees of force under certain con- 
ditions, and the persistence with which force, 
though disappearing under certain conditions, 
reappears, or is again manifested, under other 
conditions. 

In aid of the doctrine of the Unknowable, Mr. 
Spencer considers force an entity. At times, 
again, he looks upon it as an open question 
whether force is an entity or not. For instance, 
he says: 

"Leaving undiscussed the question whether it is pos- 
sible to conceive of force apart from extending some- 
thing exercising it," etc.— [Essays, Vol. II, p. 98. 

But it is not possible to conceive of force 
apart from extruding something exercising it; 
for the simple reason that whenever force ap- 
pears, it appears as having been exercised by an 
extended something. 

"The idea of resistance," says Mr. Spencer, "cannot 
be separated in thought from the idea of an extended 
body which offers resistance.'— [First Prin., 1897, Sec. 
16, p. 55. 

Now, if resistance, being a manifestation of 
force, cannot be separated in thought from the 
idea of an extended body which offers resist- 
ance, then it is at least a fair inference, that no 
manifestation of force can be separated in 
thought from the idea of an extended body 
which manifests such force. 



140 

Accordingly we find Mr. Spencer announcing 
substantially this very proposition. Speaking 
of force, he says: 

"We cannot imagine it except through the instru- 
mentality of something having extension." — [First 
Prim, 2d Edition, Sec. 18, p. 60. 

Is force here treated as an entity, or as an at- 
tribute? 

2. The next question is, how do we arrive at 
the truth of the proposition that persistence of 
force is the highest generalization of science? 

The process is the familiar one of abstraction 
and generalization. 

Accompanying the process, there are two other 
cognate processes: inductive and deductive rea- 
soning. We make investigations of the phe- 
nomena of the external world, and by induction 
arrive at conclusions concerning the attributes 
which can properly be predicated of objects. 

The process of deductive reasoning has been 
going on, also, at the same time — reasoning of 
which, as is well known, abstraction and gener- 
alization are at the very foundation. 

Mark, now, that all the time, in the progress 
of this threefold process, we have been dealing 
with attributes. We have not been following a 
chain of cause and effect. That is a different 
thing entirely. Not but that cause and effect 
have been from time to time considered in con- 
nection with these processes. The relation of 
cause and effect sometimes coincides with that 
of premise and conclusion. An occasional coin- 



141 

cidence does not, however, change the character 
of the process. Writers on logic have specified 
the confounding of these relations as one of the 
most fruitful sources of confusion of thought. 

Since, then, we have arrived at the persist- 
ence of force by a process which has all the way 
been a logical one — since we have all the way 
been dealing in attributes, and have not been 
following a chain of cause and effect — how does 
it come that when we have arrived at the highest 
attribute, we can turn around and predicate that 
attribute as First Cause and Ultimate Being? 

Force may be a cause of certain effects. So 
may other attributes. But force being an attri- 
bute, neither force as known to us, nor unknown 
force, can be First Cause, or Absolute Being. 
If force as known to us is an attribute, then un- 
known force is an unknown attribute, and cannot 
therefore be First Cause and Absolute Being. 

In his Essay on the ''Nature of Electricity," 
Mr. Spencer says: 

"It cannot be that what in the first case produces a 
change of state, in the second case produces an entity." 

So here we may say, it cannot be that what 
in all the previous stages of this process has been 
an attribute, becomes in the last stage an entity. 

In science, a cause is at the same time the effect 
of another cause, or other causes. But here we 
have posited for us a cause which is not the ef- 
fect of any other cause. It is said to be out of 
relation. But a cause cannot be out of relation. 

The effect is admitted to be related to its 



142 

cause, but it is claimed that the cause is not re- 
lated to its effect. We have a relative, but no 
correlative — relation without correlation. 

If Mr. Spencer has a right to posit an Un- 
knowable as the cause of phenomena, why has 
not another person, A, the same right to posit a 
second Unknowable behind the first; and B, a 
third behind the second; and so on? An end- 
less chain of Unknowables would be much more 
reasonable than a single Unknowable; because 
such a chain would have an analogy in the chain 
of causation known to science. 

Mr. Spencer, in combating the theory of the 
self-creation of the universe, shows that such a 
theory would require two existences, one behind 
the other; which is exactly what the doctrine of 
the Unknowable requires. Assuming that such 
a hypothesis, besides being inconceivable, upon 
which he lays great stress, would imply, behind 
actual existence, potential existence passing in- 
to actual existence, he reasons thus: 

"Moreover, even if it were true that potential exist- 
ence is conceivable as a different thing from actual ex- 
istence, and that the transition from the one to the 
other can be mentally realized as a self-determined 
change, we should still be no forwarder: the problem 
would simply be removed a step back. For whence the 
potential existence ? This would just as much require 
accounting for as actual existence; and just the same 
difficulties would meet us. Respecting the origin of 
such a latent power, no other suppositions could be 
made than those above named — self -existence, self-cre- 
ation, creation by external agency. The self-existence 
of a potential universe is no more conceivable than we 



143 

have found the self-existence of the actual universe 
to be. The self-creation of such a potential universe 
would involve over again the difficulties here stated— 
would imply behind this potential universe a more re- 
mote potentiality; and so on, in an infinite series, leav- 
ing us at last no forwarder than at first. While to as- 
sign as the source of this potential universe an external 
agency, would be to introduce the notion of a poten- 
tial universe for no purpose whatever."— [First Princi- 
ples, Sec. 11. 

Now, let us paraphrase this passage by sub- 
stituting for "potential existence" "the Unknow- 
able;" and we have the following: 

Moreover, even if it were true that the Unknowable 
is conceivable as a different thing from actual existence, 
and that the transition from the one to the other can 
be mentally realized as a self-determined change, we 
should still be no forwarder: the problem would simply 
be removed a step back. For whence the Unknowa- 
ble ? This would just as much require accounting for 
as actual existence; and just the same difficulties 
would meet us. Respecting the origin of such a latent 
power, no other suppositions could be made than those 
above named — self -existence, self-creation, creation by 
external agency. The self-existence of an Unknowa- 
ble is no more conceivable than we have found the 
self -existence of the actual universe to be. The self- 
creation of such an Unknowable would involve 
over again the difficulties here stated — would imply 
behind this Unknowable a more remote Unknowable; 
and so on, in an infinite series, leaving us at last no 
forwarder than at first. While to assign as the source 
of the Unknowable an external agency, would be to 
introduce the notion of an Unknowable for no purpose 
whatever. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE UNKNOWABLE CONTINUED — CREATION — ATHE- 
ISM — AGNOSTICISM. 

Creation, according to the theological sense of 
the term, has generally been understood to im- 
ply creation of the world out of nothing. "In 
the beginning God created the heaven and the 
earth." 

The Miltonian conception of creation from 
chaos is not inconsistent with the theory of evo- 
lution. 

Malebranche held that all phenomena are 
presented to the mind by continued and suc- 
cessive creations from instant to instant. 

"La conservation des creatures est une creation 
continue." 

These are the three theories of creation; and 
it is difficult to conceive any other theory. 

The first and third are repudiated by Mr. 
Spencer. Speaking of the theory of creation at 
the beginning, he says: 

"The production of matter out of nothing is the real 

mystery 

(144) 



145 

"Even supposing that the genesis of the universe 
could really be represented in thought as the result of 
an external agency; the mystery would be as great as 
ever; for there would still arise the question— how 
came there to be an external agency ? To account for 
this, only the same three hypotheses are possible— self- 
existence, self -creation, and creation by external agen- 
cy. Of these, the last is useless; it commits us to an 
infinite series of such agencies, and even then leaves 
us where we were. . . . Those who cannot conceive 
a self-existent universe, and who therefore assume a 
creator as the source of the universe, take for granted 
that they can conceive a self-existent creator. The 
mystery which they recognize in this great fact sur- 
rounding them on every side, they transfer to an al- 
leged source of the great fact; and then suppose that 
they have solved the mystery. But they delude them- 
selves. As was proved at the outset of the argument, 
self -existence is rigorously inconceivable; and this 
holds true, whatever be the nature of the object of 
which it is predicated. Whoever agrees that the athe- 
istic hypothesis is untenable because it involves the 
impossible idea of self-existence, must perforce admit 
that the theistic hypothesis is untenable if it contains 
the same impossible idea."— [First Prin., Sec. 11. 

The Unknowable is posited not only as First 
Cause, but as "The Creating Power." In what 
sense is the Unknowable the Creating Power? 
Which mode of creation will be adopted for the 
Unknowable? Will it be claimed that the uni- 
verse was created by the Unknowable as an ex- 
ternal agency? If so, by a slight paraphrase, 
we have from Mr. Spencer himself the following 
argument: 

Even supposing that the genesis of the universe 
could really be represented in thought as the result of 



146 

an Unknowable; the mystery would be as great as ev- 
er; for there would still arise the question — how came 
there to be an Unknowable ? To account for this, only 
the same three hypotheses are possible— self-existence, 
self-creation, and creation by another Unknowable. 
Of these, the last is useless; it commits us to an infinite 
series of such Unknowables; and even then leaves us 
where we were. . . . Those who cannot conceive a 
self-existent universe, and who therefore assume an 
unknowable Creating Power as the source of the uni- 
verse, take for granted that they can conceive a 
self-existent, unknowable Creating Power. The mys- 
tery which they recognize in this great fact surround- 
ing them on every side, they transfer to an alleged 
source of the great fact— to an unknowable and un- 
thinkable Creating Power. They then suppose that they 
have solved the mystery. But they delude themselves. 
As was proved at the outset of the argument, self-ex- 
istence is rigorously inconceivable; and this holds 
true, whatever be the nature of the object of which it 
is predicated— whether it be called the Creator, First 
Cause, the Unknowable, or the Creating Power. Who- 
ever agrees that the atheistic hypothesis is untenable 
because it involves the impossible idea of self -exist- 
ence, must perforce admit that the hypothesis of the 
Unknowable is untenable if it contains the same im- 
possible idea. 

We may therefore discard the idea of the cre- 
ation of the universe by the Unknowable as an 
external agency. How then can the Unknowa- 
ble be the Creating Power? Shall we adopt the 
theory of Malebranche, and say theUnknowable 
projects phenomena into the universe by contin- 
uous creation? But this theory also is rejected 
by the author of "First Principles." 

We are, then, forced to the conclusion that it 



147 

is in the creation by evolution that the Unknow- 
able is considered the Creating Power. But ev- 
olution is a process of unfolding in accordance 
with the primordial laws of matter and motion. 
Since these laws are stable and uniform in 
their operation, what office is there for the Un- 
knowable to perform in the work of creation? 
Is it to see that the laws are kept in operation? 
This might be inferred from the fact that one of 
the titles of the Unknowable is, "The Sustain- 
ing Power." But since no intelligence is as- 
cribed to the Unknowable, how is it to know 
whether the laws are properly carried out or not? 
And if it should know or should find out that 
something was going wrong, how could the 
wrong be righted, since no activity is ascribed 
to the Unknowable? It is difficult to see what 
would be its function in the process of creation 
by evolution. 

There is, therefore, no possible sense in 
which the Unknowable can be the Creating or 
Sustaining Power. And how came the Unknow- 
able into existence? It is called the First 
Cause— the Ultimate Cause. But the Ultimate 
Cause must be uncaused; and if uncaused, it 
must be self-existent. Mr. Spencer says, "self- 
existence is rigorously inconceivable." How 
then can he assume an Unknowable as the Creat- 
ing Power of the universe? Are not a Creat- 
ing Power and a Creator the same thing? How 
can he object to the doctrine of creation by a 
Creator, on the ground that the Creator would 



148 
be self-existent, and therefore inconceivable, and 
at the same time maintain the existence of a 
Creating Power which must be equally self-ex- 
existent and equally inconceivable? Why has 
not the Theist as much right to have an incon- 
ceivable Creator as the author of First Principles 
has to have an inconceivable Creating Power? 



ATHEISM. 

The existence of a God is inconceivable, and the 
necessity of such an existence in a universe gov- 
erned by law, is inconceivable. But it is equally 
inconceivable how the universe could have exist- 
ed from all eternity, and could now be drifting 
through the ages without any sustaining power 
or controlling mind, and without any definite 
purpose as to the final outcome. 

John Stuart Mill has shown that truth does 
not rest on the foundation that the contrary is 
inconceivable. If a proposition is not only in- 
conceivable but at the same time contradictory 
or absurd, then it is to be rejected; but not 
merely because it is inconceivable. 

If that were so, then, as has been shown by 
Dr. Brownson — whose criticism of Spencer is in 
some respects the most searching and cogent of 
all — it can easily be proved that there is no ex- 
isting cosmos. The argument will run thus: 

What is inconceivable is not true. 

It is inconceivable that there should be a created 
cosmos; and it is inconceivable that there should be a 
cosmos existing from all eternity. 



149 

But if there be a cosmos, it either was created or is 
self-existent. 

Therefore, it is not true that there is any existing 
cosmos whatever. 

The converse argument will run as follows: 

It is true that there is an existing cosmos. 
It is inconceivable that this cosmos should have been 
created, cr should have existed forever. 
But one or the other is true. 
Therefore, something is true that is inconceivable. 

The corollary to this is the proposition of Mr. 
Mill, that merely because any thing is inconceiva- 
ble, we cannot therefore say that it is false; and 
the further proposition that we cannot say that 
any thing is necessarily true, the contrary of 
which is inconceivable. 

To affirm that God does not exist, and to say 
that we cannot affirm that God exists, are two 
very different propositions. And the difference 
between them is the difference between Atheism 
and Agnosticism. 

In discussing the relative merits of Atheism 
and Agnosticism, we must define certain terms, 
to wit: God, Theism, Atheism, Agnosticism. 
By the term God I mean a supreme intelli- 
gent Being, as the definition is given in Web- 
ster. By the term Theism is meant a belief in 
the existence of a supreme intelligent Being; 
and by the term Atheism, a disbelief or denial 
of the existence of such a Being. 

But it is claimed that the word Atheist being 
derived from the Greek Theos, meaning God, 



150 

and A, the Greek Alpha, which is privative, 
Atheism simply means without Theism, or with- 
out any belief in God, and does not necessarily 
imply denial of his existence. This is not en- 
tirely correct. It is true that Alpha is privative, 
but the term privative does not mean merely 
without. It implies not only privation, but ne- 
gation, and gives a negative force to a word. 

The office which Alpha performs can best be 
illustrated by some examples : 

The Greek boulomai means to will, to wish, to be 
willing. A-bouleo means to be unwilling. The force of 
a-bouleo would not be maintained if a person simply 
had no will upon the subject. He must be positively 
unwilling. It is equivalent to ou (not) and boulomai. 
"A-bouleo = oa boulomai." — [Liddell & Scott. 

The Greek glukus means sweet. A-glukees means 
not sweet, sour, harsh. It would not be sufficient that 
a thing should be without sweetness. 

Diallasso means to reconcile. A-diallaktos, irrecon- 
cilable. That a person is not reconciled to his enemy, 
or is without being reconciled, is not sufficient. He 
must refuse to be reconciled. 

Seebo, to worship, to be religious; a-sebee.s, ungodly, 
unholy, profane. 

In the following instance, alpha is merely privative: 

Dikazo, to judge. A-dikastos, without judgment giv- 
en, undecided. 

[t depends upon the nature of the attribute quali- 
fied or of the act performed. If in this case the Greek 
verb had meant to judge favorably, then the prefix 
would have indicated adverse judgment. 

Thus it will be seen that the etymological 
signification of the word Atheism is not far dif- 
ferent from its popular signification. 



151 

AGNOSTICISM. 

By the term Agnosticism is meant the posi- 
tion of one who denies that he has any knowl- 
edge concerning the existence of a God, or any 
evidence sufficient for a faith in such a Being. 
But he does not deny the existence of such a Be- 
ing. He falls back upon his ignorance. The sub- 
ject may be illustrated by the following catechism : 

QUESTION. 

Is there a God ? 

ANSWER. 

By the Atheist and Agnostic in unison. — What do 
you mean by a God? 

QUESTION. 

By a God I mean a supreme intelligent Being. Is 
there such a Being ? 

ANSWER. 

By the Atheist. — No. 

By the Agnostic. — I do not know. 

The Agnostic and the Comtist are at one so 
far as the existence of God is concerned. Nei- 
ther of them affirms or denies anything upon 
the subject. Neither the Agnostic nor the 
Comtist philosophy is atheistic. Neither of 
these philosophies goes behind phenomena — 
neither of them searches for a first cause. The 
Spencerian metaphysical philosophy goes behind 
phenomena — it searches for a first cause, and 
finds it in something which it calls the Unknow- 
able; but it is not God. It looks where God 
should be, but finds him not. Nowhere in phe- 
nomena, nor in the incomprehensible, or at least 
the uncomprehended, mysteries of matter, nor 
yet in the immeasurable beyond, does it find a 
place for God. 



152 

Neither the Agnostic nor the Comtist claims 
to know of the existence of any thing behind 
the phenomena of the universe. The Spenceri- 
an metaphysical philosopher affirms that he 
knows of the existence of something behind phe- 
nomena. While he does not affirm categorically 
that it is not God, yet this existence, having nei- 
ther attributes nor intelligence, cannot be God. 
The Spencerian metaphysical philosopher does, 
therefore, in effect, deny the existence of God; 
since he substitutes for him another existence, 
which leaves no place for God in the universe. 



CHAPTER XXn. 

DOCTRINE OF THE UNKNOWABLE — DIM OR VAGUE 
CONSCIOUSNESS. 

The existence of the Unknowable is posited 
from a dim or vague consciousness; from an in- 
complete thought. It is admitted that the Un- 
knowable cannot be distinctly formulated in 
thought; that when the consciousness becomes 
vivid, the Unknowable disappears. But it is 
claimed that from a faint or dim consciousness — 
from half-formed thoughts — we may posit that 
which is the most certain of all truths. This is 
equivalent to asserting that when we are in a 
a dreamy state — when we are in a reverie — we 
are in the best possible condition for the ascer- 
tainment of truth. Let us see how this condi- 
tion of mind is described: 

"Manifestations that occur under the conditions 
called those of perception . . . are ordinarily far 
more distinct than those which occur under the con- 
ditions known as those of reflection, or memory, or 
imagination, or ideation. These vivid manifestations 
do, indeed, sometimes differ but little from the faint 
(153) 



154 

ones. When nearly dark, we may be unable to decide 
whether a certain manifestation belongs to the vivid 
order or the faint order— whether, as we say, we really 
see something, or fancy we see it. . . . 

"During what we call our states of activity, the vivid 
manifestations predominate. It is only on lapsing in- 
to the unconsciousness termed sleep, that manifesta- 
tions of the vivid order cease to be distinguishable as 
such, and those of the faint order come to be mistak- 
en for them. . . . 

"When, as we say, absorbed in thought, the disturb- 
ance of the faint current is but superficial. . . . There 
meanwhile flows on a main stream of faint manifesta- 
tions wholly unrelated to the vivid manifestations— 
what we call a reverie, perhaps, or it may be a process 
of reasoning. And occasionally, during the state 
known as absence of mind, this current of faint mani- 
festations so far predominates that the vivid current 
scarcely affects it at all. . . . Manifestations of the 
one order are vivid, and those of the other are faint. 
Those of the one order are originals, while those of the 
other order are copies."— [First Prin., Sec. 43. 

We fail to see in this any thing that gives a 
peculiar value to the faint manifestations. On 
the contrary, it shows that a faint consciousness 
is such as we have when in a reverie, or in a 
dreamy condition. 

Let us now turn to Sec. 26 of First Principles, 
where the subject is examined more closely, with 
reference to the Unknowable: 

" Besides that definite consciousness of which logic 
formulates the laws, there is also an indefinite con- 
sciousness which cannot be formulated. Besides com- 
plete thoughts, and besides the thoughts which though 
incomplete admit of completion, there are thoughts 
which it is impossible to complete, and yet which are 



155 

still real in the sense that they are normal affections 
of the intellect. . . . 

"It is rigorously impossible to conceive that our 
knowledge is a knowledge of appearances only, with- 
out at the same time conceiving a Reality of which 
they are appearances; for appearance without reality 
is unthinkable. Strike out from the argument the 
terms Unconditioned, Infinite, Absolute, with their 
equivalents, and in place of them write 'negation of 
conceivability,' or 'absence of the conditions under 
which consciousness is possible,' and you find that the 
argument becomes nonsense. Truly to realize in 
thought any one of the propositions of which the ar- 
gument consists, the Unconditioned must be repre- 
sented as positive and not negative. [This in reply to 
Sir William Hamilton, who says that the notion of the 
unconditioned is only negative; and in reply to Mr. 
Mansel, who says that the infinite must be regarded as 
the mere negation of thought.] How, then, can it be a 
legitimate conclusion from the argument that our con- 
sciousness of it is negative ? An argument, the very 
construction of which assigns to a certain term a cer- 
tain meaning, but which ends in showing that this 
term has no such meaning, is simply an elaborate sui- 
cide. Clearly, then, the very demonstration that a def- 
inite consciousness of the Absolute is impossible to us, 
unavoidably presupposes an indefinite consciousness 
of it." 

Clearly, the difference here is owing mainly 
to a different use of terms. Mr. Mansel and Sir 
William Hamilton explain that by the terms ab- 
solute and unconditioned they mean merely the 
negation of the knowable. But when Mr. Spen- 
cer uses these terms, he means the positive ex- 
istence of the Unknowable; and, insisting upon 
the terms being taken in the sense in which he 



156 

uses them, and urging that the argument made 
on the other side requires the same meaning to 
be given to them, he claims that there is an in- 
consistency. 

It will be noticed that he lays much stress 
upon the fact that it is necessary that the Un- 
conditioned be represented as positive in order 
"to realize in thought any one of the propositions 
of which the argument consists." 

In determining whether there be an Unknow- 
able or not, Mr. Spencer rigorously insists that 
the propositions of which the argument consists 
shall be realized in thought. But that the Un- 
knowable itself should be realized in thought, 
he considers of no consequence. 

Again : We fail to see how the distinction be- 
tween definite and indefinite consciousness has 
any thing to do with this argument. If the ar- 
gument is good, it is because the very terms 
made use of imply the positive existence of the 
Unconditioned. Does Mr. Spencer mean to fall 
back upon an indefinite consciousness to make 
good an argument which w r ould otherwise be in- 
valid or uncertain? If his conclusion follows 
from the premises, he does not need an indefi- 
nite consciousness to sustain the argument. If 
it does not follow, how can the indefinite con- 
sciousness make it good? Surely he cannot 
mean to appeal for evidence of the Unknowable 
to the indefinite consciousness of Hamilton and 
Mansel, neither of whom concedes any con- 
sciousness of such an existence. 



157 

Further along in the same section, he comes 
still more closely to the question: 

"And here we come face to face with the ultimate 
difficulty:— How can there possibly be constituted a 
consciousness of the unformed and unlimited, when, 
by its very nature, consciousness is possible only un- 
der forms and limits? If every consciousness of ex- 
istence is a consciousness of existence as conditioned, 
then how, after the negation of conditions, can there 
be any residuum ? ... In each concept there is an 
element which persists. . . . The persistence of 
this element, under successive conditions, necessitates 
a sense of it as distinguished from the conditions, and 
independent of them. The sense of a something that 
is conditioned in every thought, cannot be got rid of 
because the something cannot be got rid of. How, 
then, must the sense of this something be constituted? 
Evidently by combining successive concepts deprived 
of their limits and conditions" 

We have emphasized the last sentence, be- 
cause it contains a complete statement of the 
doctrine of the Unknowable. The question is 
thus very fairly stated: 

"How can there possibly be constituted a conscious- 
ness of the unformed and unlimited, when, by its very 
nature, consciousness is possible only under forms and 
limits?" 

The answer is: 

"By combining successive concepts deprived of their 
limits and conditions." 

Now, if this can be done, then, we admit, the 
doctrine of the Unknowable can be established. 
To say that we can do this, is to say that con- 
cepts which are possible only under form and 



158 
condition, can be deprived of their forms and 
conditions, and then combined together. 

We can think only in relation. Take away 
the relations existing in thought, and you take 
away the thought. Neither a dim nor a vivid 
consciousness will remain. 

Not only are these "limits and conditions" 
necessary to thought, but in consciousness they 
are necessary to the continuance of thought. 
Unless these concepts, after being formed, can be 
continued in successive existence, they cannot 
be "combined," even if they could be deprived 
of their limits and conditions. 

The continued concepts, those denominated 
by our author faint manifestations, are, he as- 
sures us, copies of the vivid manifestations. 
But copies cannot be more potent than the orig- 
inals; therefore both classes of manifestations, 
the vivid and the faint, are equally dependent 
on form and condition for their existence. 

This view of the matter is confirmed by Prof. 
Bain. He says: 

"The really fundamental separation of the powers 
of the Intellect is into three facts called (1) Discrimi- 
nation, the Sense, Feeling, or Consciousness of Differ- 
ence; (2) Similarity, the Sense, Feeling, or Conscious- 
ness of Agreement; [these two divisions correspond 
to the 'vivid consciousness' of Spencer;] and (3) Retent- 
iveness, or the power of Memory or Acquisition." (This 
last division corresponds to the "faint consciousness" 
of Spencer.)— ["Mind and Body," N. Y., 1894, pp. 82,83. 

Speaking of Retention, Acquisition, or Mem- 
ory, which he defines as "the power of continu- 



159 

ing in the mind impressions that are no longer 
stimulated by the original agent," Prof. Bain 
says: 

"It must be considered as almost beyond a doubt 
that [apparently quoting from the elder Scaliger] 'the 
renewed feeling occupies the very same parts and in 
the same manner as the original feeling, and no other 
parts nor in any other manner that can be assigned.' " 
—[Ibid., p. 89. 

The copies must hare the same limits and 
conditions as the originals. How, then, can 
successive concepts be ■•deprived of their limits 
and conditions"? To deprive a thought of its 
limits and conditions is to strike it out of exist- 
ence. 

Inasmuch, then, as the vivid and faint mani- 
festations stand upon the same foundation, and 
the faint are copies of the vivid, which are the 
more to be relied upon? 

We have the authority of Mr. Spencer him- 
self for saying that the faint manifestations are 
not so reliable as the vivid. Writing upon the 
same subject in another place, he says: 

"Deliverances of consciousness given in the vivid 
terms we call sensations, excite a confidence immeas- 
urably exceeding the confidence excited by the deliv- 
erances given in the faint terms we distinguish as 
ideas." 

After giving illustrations, he concludes as fol- 
lows: 

"By all persons, then, and in all cases, where the 
characters of the acts of consciousness are in other 
respects the same, the deliverances given in vivid 
terms are accepted in preference to those given in faint 



160 

terms. Obscure perceptions are rejected rather than 
clear ones; remembrances which are definite are trust- 
ed rather than those which are indefinite; and above 
all, the deliverances of consciousness composed of 
sensations are unhesitatingly preferred to those com- 
posed of the ideas of sensations."— [Psychology, Sec. 
410. 

And speaking of a certain theory, he says: 

"It could not be accepted without asserting that 
things are most certainly known in proportion as they 
are most faintly perceived." 

And yet, notwithstanding this distinct verdict 
in favor of the vivid manifestations when com- 
pared with the faint manifestations, we are asked 
to accept the Unknowable "as the most certain 
of all truths," when posited from a dim, vague, 
indefinite consciousness; while it is admitted 
that before a vivid consciousness — before a com- 
plete thought — the Unknowable disappears. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

DOCTRINE OF THE UNKNOWABLE — ANTITHESIS OF 
THOUGHT. 

It is claimed that we are under the necessity 
of predicating the positive existence of the Un- 
knowable as the antithesis of thought. 

What is an antithesis? It is something "set 
over" against something else. 

All thought is in relation. What is the na- 
ture of this relation? It is the relation of ob- 
jects to ourselves and to each other; not their 
relation to something existing in some other 
mode than that in which these objects exist. If 
such were the relation that enables the individ- 
ual to cognize the external world, then the argu- 
ment for the unknowable might be good. But 
it is the relation of things with each other that 
renders them cognizable. Phenomena cannot 
be related to the Unknowable, because, by the 
hypothesis, the Unknowable is out of relation. 
One of its many names is the Non-Relative. 
How can any thing be in relation to that which 
is entirely out of relation? 
(161) 



162 

The Unknowable is said to be "behind" phe- 
nomena. If behind, then it is outside. And 
how can the relations between objects throw any 
light upon any thing outside of the objects 
themselves? No relation can prove the exist- 
ence of any object outside the terms of the rela- 
tion. The relation of A to B cannot prove the 
existence of C. But it proves the existence of 
A and B, else they could not be in relation. Let 
A and B be two objects in the external world; 
and let be the Absolute or Unknowable. The 
relation is between A and B : not between A and 
B on the one side and on the other. 

When I look at a chair in the room in which 
I am sitting, what is it that enables me to cog- 
nize the chair? Is it not the relation between 
the chair and the other objects in the room? as 
also the relation between the chair and the 
room, and between the chair and room on the 
one side and myself on the other? Or is it the 
relation between all these and some unknown 
power which may be supposed to have brought 
them into existence ? As well might it be said 
that what enables me to cognize the chair is the 
relation between the chair and the cabinet-mak- 
er who manufactured it, or between the chair 
and the tradesman who sold it. Manifestly it is 
neither the one nor the other. Much less is it a 
relation existing between the chair and some- 
thing behind the chair, the cabinet-maker, and 
the tradesman. 

What enables us to cognize phenomena is not 



163 
a relation supposed to exist between the phe- 
nomena and the noumena, but the relations per- 
ceived to exist between the phenomena them- 
selves. 

The relation that renders cognition possible, 
is the relation between things knowable; not 
between the knowable and the unknowable. 
Things in themselves knowable become, through 
their relation to each other, subjects of cogni- 
tion. After that, the boundaries of knowledge 
are extended by proceeding, not from the know- 
able to the unknowable, but from the known to 
the unknown. As Voltaire says: "On va d'ordi- 
naire du eonnu a l'inconnn." 

Let it be borne in mind that there is no anal- 
ogy between the antithesis claimed for the Un- 
knowable, and that insisted upon by James Mar- 
tineau (Essays, Vol. 3, p. 204) , in regard to in- 
finite space and time. His argument, that you 
cannot say that you know the moon to be differ- 
ent from the son, and at the same time say you do 
not know it to be different from the infinite 
space in which it moves; and that you cannot 
Say you know Ciesar's life and date to be other 
than Seneca's, and at the same time say you do 
not know either from the infinite time in which 
it appears — is a good argument. Here there is 
an antithesis. By contrast and correlation, we can 
form some idea — an indefinite idea it is true — 
but some idea of infinite time and space; as John 
Stuart Mill justly maintains. But of the Un- 
knowable we can form no idea whatever, be- 



164 

cause here there is no antithesis of thought. 

If the Unknowable furnishes an antithesis for 
thought, how is it that it is said to be not only 
unknowable but unthinkable? If any thing is 
an antithesis of thought, can it at the same time 
be outside the boundaries of thought? If a 
thought be in antithesis, can either term of the 
antithesis be outside the thought? 

It is not correct to say (as in "First Princi- 
ples," Sec. 26) that "the Noumenon is every 
where named as the antithesis of the Phenome- 
non." It is not so named by Mr. Mansel, nor 
by Sir William Hamilton. It is not so named 
by Auguste Comte, nor by many others. 

Again, it is asserted that "appearance without 
reality is unthinkable." But the reality, ac- 
cording to Mr. Spencer himself, is equally un- 
thinkable. The argument therefore is, that in 
order to think of something that is thinkable, it 
is necessary to think of something that is not 
thinkable. In order to understand anything of 
what is knowable, it is necessary to predicate 
the positive existence of something unknowable. 
In order to think in relation, it is necessary to 
think out of relation. But to think out of 
relation is impossible. Therefore, in order to 
think, it is necessary not to think. 

What is reality? It is this objective world in 
which we live, move, and have our being. It is 
this which is the basis of all science — the source 
of all positive knowledge. It is the only reality 
which we know or can know. 



165 

Further, our author says: 

"It is a doctrine called in question by none, that 
such antinomies of thought as whole and part, equal 
and unequal, singular and plural, are necessarily con- 
ceived as correlatives; the conception of a part is im- 
possible without the conception of a whole; there can 
be no idea of equality without one of inequality. And 
it is admitted [?] that in the same manner the Rela- 
tive is itself conceivable as such only by opposition to 
the Irrelative or Absolute."— [First Prin., Sec. 26. 

The answer to this may be given in the lan- 
guage of Sir William Hamilton: 

One of these correlatives is nothing beyond 
the negation of the other. 

"Correlatives," he says, "certainly suggest each oth- 
er; but correlatives may or may not be equally real 
and positive. In thought, contradictories necessarily 
imply each other; for the knowledge of contradictories 
is one. But the reality of one contradictory, so far 
from guaranteeing the reality of the other, is nothing 
else than its negation. Thus every positive notion 
(the concept of a thing by what it is) suggests a nega- 
tive notion (the concept of a thing by what it is not); 
and the highest positive notion, the notion of the con- 
ceivable, is not without its corresponding negative in 
the notion of the inconceivable. But though these 
mutually suggest each other, the positive alone is real ; 
the negative is only an abstraction of the other, and in 
the highest generality even an abstraction of thought 
itself."— [Hamilton's Criticism of Cousin. 

Mr. Spencer replies to this by reaffirming his 
former position, and adds: 

"If the Xon-Relative or Absolute is present in 
thought only as a mere negation, then the relation be- 
tween it and the Relative becomes unthinkable, be- 
cause one of the terms of the relation is absent from 



166 

consciousness. And if this relation is unthinkable, 
then is the relative itself unthinkable for want of its 
antithesis; whence results the disappearance of all 
thought whatever." 

Here we cannot refrain from again making a 
slight paraphrase; and we will have the argu- 
ment running thus: 

"If the Non-Relative or Absolute is present in 
thought as a Reality, then, this Reality being unthink- 
able, any relation between it and the Relative becomes 
unthinkable; because one of the terms of the relation 
is absent from consciousness. And if this relation is 
unthinkable, then is the relative itself unthinkable; 
whence results the disappearance of all thought what- 
ever." 

What is the verdict of consciousness on this 
question? Does consciousness say that in order 
to think of something that can be thought of, 
it is necessary to think of something that can- 
not be thought of? Does consciousness tell us 
that in order to think in relation it is necessary 
to think out of relation ? Does it tell us that in 
in order to cognize something that exists, we 
must recognize as existing something which we 
do not know to exist? 

Mr. Spencer repeatedly speaks of depriving 
thought of its limits and conditions for the pur- 
pose of establishing a consciousness of the Un- 
knowable. But he overlooks the fact that he 
had already claimed that the existence of 
the Unknowable is a necessary condition of 
thought. 

If the Unknowable is a necessary condition of 



167 

thought, then, in depriving thought of its limits 
and conditions, he eliminates the Unknowable, 
which was the most essential condition. If 
the Unknowable was a necessary condition of 
thought, why not let it remain? What the ne- 
cessity for depriving thought of that or any oth- 
er condition for the purpose of establishing the 
existence of that which had already been predi- 
cated as necessary? Why not let thought re- 
main, with its necessary limits and conditions? 
What the necessity for this abstruse metaphys- 
ical process? Why take thought to pieces mere- 
ly for the purpose of reconstructing it? 

First, thought is to be deprived of its limits 
and conditions; and then, successive concepts, 
consisting of unconditioned thought — which is 
really no thought at all — are to be combined to- 
gether in order to form a consciousness of the 
Unknowable. And thus thought is to get back 
the condition of which it has been deprived; — a 
condition which, according to the author of 
"First Frinciples," was in the first place, and all 
the time has been, necessary to its existence. 

Mr. Spencer replies to Hamilton that while 
he (Hamilton) does not admit the existence of 
the Unknowable as an antithesis of thought, he 
does admit the same existence on the authority 
of divine revelation. This is the "argumentum 
ad hominem"; and while it may be good as 
against Hamilton, it is not good against one who 
does not accept the revelation, and who denies 
that he has any dim or vague consciousness of 



168 
the Unknowable. What answer will be made to 
such a one? Will he be contradicted, and 
told that he has borne false testimony against 
his consciousness? Or will he be told that he 
does not know w T hat his consciousness testifies? 
Mr. Spencer himself says that no one knows 
what is in the consciousness of a person except 
that person himself. How, then, can he say 
what is in the consciousness of others? 

The fact that Auguste Comte and Sir William 
Hamilton and Mr. Mansel deny that they have 
any consciousness of the positive existence of 
the Unknowable as the antithesis of thought, 
is of itself sufficient to entirely overthrow this 
branch of the argument in favor of the Unknow- 
able, as existing in universal consciousness. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

DOCTRINE OF THE UNKNOWABLE — IDEALISM. 

"We are thus forced to the conclusion that the re- 
lations of co-existence, of sequence, and of difference, 
as we know them, do not obtain beyond conscious- 
ness."— [Principles of Psychology, Vol I, Chap. IV., 
Sec. 93. 

This proposition is not only, as the author 
says, "apparently incredible"; it is really incred- 
ible. It is incredible because it is contrary to 
the universal experience of mankind. 

The proposition is, that the relations of co-ex- 
istence, etc., as we know them, do not obtain be- 
yond consciousness. 

Let us suppose that "we" consist of four per- 
sons: A, B, C, and D. Our consciousness is not 
in common. Each has his own consciousness, 
and the consciousness of each is beyond that of 
each of the others. The question is, whether 
the relations of co-existence, of sequence, and 
of difference, as we, the four, know them, obtain 
beyond consciousness. 

These relations, though they may be at times 
somewhat different, are, as we find by compari- 

(169) 



170 

son, substantially the same in the consciousness 
of the four. Now, the very fact that the rela- 
tions obtain in the consciousness of A, proves 
that they obtain beyond the consciousness of B, 
C, and D. And, in like manner, the very fact 
that they obtain in the consciousness of B, O, 
and D, or either of them, proves that they ob- 
tain beyond the consciousness of A. 

What, then, is the cause of these subjective 
relations which are beyond the consciousness 
of each, and which, at the same time, are within 
the consciousness of each? We do not obtain 
them one from the other. They must, there- 
fore, have corresponding relations in the exter- 
nal world, existing beyond consciousness. We 
all know that the relations obtain, not only in 
our own consciousness, but in the consciousness 
of others; and we know that there is no other 
explanation of this than the existence of the 
material world around us, in the relations of 
co-existence, of sequence, and of difference. 

Let us bring this question of idealism to a 
practical test: 

Suppose a person to go into a dark room, 
thinking it to be empty, while in fact there are 
several stoves in various portions of the room. 
He soon perceives relations of co-existence, of 
sequence, and of difference obtaining in the 
room. He not only has the persistent conscious- 
ness of those relations, but he has at the same 
time a painful impression that while he was on his 
way to the room, and before he had entered it, 



171 

those relations obtained in the room, beyond his 
consciousness. When he strikes against one of 
these stoves, whose ideas or whose subjective af- 
fections or relations or states of consciousness 
does he hit against? Surely, not his own; for he 
did not know the stoves were there. If these rela- 
tions obtained beyond his consciousness when 
he did not know of their existence, do they not 
equally obtain beyond his consciousness, now 
that he does know of their existence? Or do re- 
lations which previously obtained beyond his 
consciousness now become merged into his con- 
sciousness, and thereby lose the separate exist- 
ence which they previously had? 

It is plain that the relations of co-existence, 
of sequence, and of difference, as we know them, 
do in fact obtain beyond consciousness. 

There are other tests, also, for correcting the 
individual consciousness — other ways of ascer- 
taining whether the relations in consciousness 
have corresponding relations, which are known 
to us, beyond consciousness. 

For instance: Take some of the illustrations 
made use of by Mr. Spencer for the purpose of 
proving his concluding proposition. He says: 

"The consciousness of a given relation of two posi- 
tions in space must vary quantitatively with variation 
of bodily bulk. Clearly, a mouse, which has to run many 
times its own length to traverse the space which a man 
traverses at a stride, cannot have the same concep- 
tion of this space as a man. . . . Distances which 
seemed great to the boy, seem moderate to the man ; and 
buildings once thought imposing in height and mass, 



172 

dwindle into insignificance. ... A small or mod- 
erate magnitude is under-estimated when a great mag- 
nitude has just before occupied the attention. A 
building that appeared large when it stood amid 
smaller buildings, loses much of its seeming largeness 
if a far larger building is erected close to it. Or, to take 
a better case— when the sun is seen in the midst of the 
sky, with none but great angular spaces between it and 
the horizon, it looks very much less than it does when 
close to the horizon, w T here the angular space it sub- 
tends is comparable side by side with small angular 
spaces. . . . Apparent size depends on distance 
from the eye, and apparent form changes with every 
change in the point of view. . . . 

"We are thus driven to the conclusion that what we 
perceive as space-relations, cannot be, either in their 
natures or degrees, like those connections among ex- 
ternal things to which they are due. They change 
both qualitatively and quantitively with the struc- 
ture, the size, the state, and the position of the percip- 
ient. And when we see that what is objectively con- 
sidered the same connection between things, may, as a 
space-relation in consciousness, be single or double- 
when we remember that, according as we are near or 
far off, it may be too large to be simultaneously per- 
ceived or too small to be perceived at all — it becomes 
impossible to suppose any identity between this ob- 
jective connection and some one of the multitudinous 
subjective relations answering to it." — [Prin. of Psy- 
chology, Vol I., pp. 213 to 215. 

This is a different conclusion from the one 
w T hich we are examining. It will not be claimed 
that there is any "identity" between the object- 
ive connections and the relations in conscious- 
ness. The question is, w T hether the relations of 
co-existence, etc., as we know them, obtain be- 



173 
yond consciousness. The foregoing argument 
amounts to this: Our senses often deceive us — 
frequently we do not see things as they are; 
therefore, we do not see them at all. Hence, we 
have no certain knowledge of things which we 
perceive in the external world. 

On the subject of knowledge, the position of 
Mr. Spencer is anomalous. He has no positive 
knowledge that what he sees, hears and feels, has 
any objective existence. But he knows that 
something which he cannot see, hear, or feel, 
does really exist. 

The knowable he does not know; but the un- 
knowable he knows. 

Hence, ignorance consists in knowledge of 
what can be known, and knowledge consists on- 
ly in the knowledge (ignorance) of what is en- 
tirely unknowable. 

In other words: 

What we know, we do not know; but what we 
do not know, we know. 

And are we thus to pervert the English lan- 
guage in aid of a new system of philosophy? 

There are tests by which to correct the illu- 
sions of consciousness. If a house looks larger 
or smaller than it is, by measurement we can 
find out how large it really is. This test of 
measurement we apply even to the sun. By 
mathematical calculation, based upon measure- 
ment, we come to form an adequate and true 
conception of the size of the sun; and thus the 
sun, "as we know it," obtains beyond conscious- 



174 
ness, in its relations of co-existence and of dif- 
ference, among the heavenly bodies. 

Again: The erroneous impression derived 
from one of the senses may be corrected by 
impressions derived from the other senses. 
Also the erroneous impressions of one person 
may be corrected by comparing them with the 
impressions of other individuals and with the 
collected experiences of mankind. So, also, 
they may be compared with the previous expe- 
riences of the same individual. His present 
impressions of an object can be co-ordinated 
with and corrected by his past impressions of 
the same object. 

The idealism of Spencer is different from that 
of Berkeley and of Hume. While Berkeley 
leaves nothing existing beyond consciousness, 
Spencer leaves something existing; but what is 
it? After stating that the relations of co-ex- 
istence, of sequence, and of difference, as we 
know them, do not obtain beyond consciousness, 
he proceeds to explain what there is beyond 
consciousness: 

"More certain, then, than the relativity of relations, 
as we conceive them, is the existence of non-relative 
forms to which they refer; since proof of the first in- 
volves perpetual assumption of the last. There is 
some ontological order whence arises the phenomenal 
order we know as space; there is some ontological or- 
der whence arises the phenomenal order we know as 
time; and there is some ontological nexus whence 
arises the phenomenal relation we know as difference." 

These, then, are what obtain beyond con- 



175 

sciousness: Non-relative forms, two ontological 
orders, and an ontological nexus. But what are 
non-relative forms? The very term "form" im- 
plies a relation. It is impossible to think of a 
form except in relation. What, then, is a non- 
relative form? And what is an ontological or- 
der? or an ontological nexus? The term "onto- 
logical" is not known to science. 

We have been told in "First Principles," that 
the Unknowable exists out of relation; and one 
of the numerous names given to it is "The Non- 
relative." Non-relative forms, then, are no- 
thing more nor less than forms of the Unknow- 
able. And the ontological orders which give 
rise to the relations of co-existence and of se- 
quence, as we know them, are orders of the Un- 
knowable. So, also, the ontological nexus which 
gives rise to the relation of difference, as we 
know it, is a nexus of the Unknowable. 

Thus there are only forms of consciousness 
within, and forms of the Unknowable without. 
But these forms of the Unknowable cannot be 
cognized. Mr. Spencer does not recognize a 
complete cognition at all; only something which 
"we call a cognition;" that is, "a relative cogni- 
tion as distinguished from an absolute cogni- 
tion."— [Essays, Vol. II, p. 241. 

The doctrine of the Unknowable, with its ac- 
companying idealism, results, therefore, in the 
final analysis, in complete skepticism. 

That such should be the outcome of the doc- 
trine of the Unknowable, is not surprising. It 



176 

is a doctrine speculative and metaphysical in 
the highest degree. When a writer professedly 
enters into the region beyond phenomena; when 
he institutes a search for a first or ulti- 
mate cause; when he enters upon a discus- 
sion of the relations of the non-relative and the 
unknowable; when he undertakes to explain the 
inexplicable; when he asks us to contemplate 
the unthinkable, it is not strange that he should 
fail to make himself understood. Where there 
is nothing to be communicated, nothing but 
that fact can be made clear. 

There 'remains to be examined, in the 
closing chapter, the reconciliation between sci- 
ence and religion. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

RECONCILIATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RE- 
LIGION. 

As shown in the preceding chapters, Mr. 
Spencer does not recognize the separate exist- 
ence of the external world, or cosmos. In this 
he is consistent. For, if there be an existing 
cosmos, it is either self-existent, or it was 
brought into being by a self-existent Creator. 
But self-existence Mr. Spencer holds to be "rig- 
orously inconceivable"; and every thing that is 
inconceivable, except the Unknowable, he re- 
jrcts. Then 1 being no self-existence, there can 
be no cosmos. His idealism involves the same 
conclusion. 

The universe, then, does not exist. But some- 
thing exists? Yes: what is it? Not anything 
known, nor even anything knowable; but some- 
thing entirely unknowable. 

The Unknowable, then, exists. Do we know 
it exists? Yes; this is "the most certain of all 
truths." Though it is unknowable, inconceiva- 
ble, and even unthinkable, yet we know that it 

(177) 



178 
exists; it is inextricable from consciousness; it 
is the antithesis of thought. 

What is this Unknowable? Has it intelli- 
gence? No. Has it activity? No. Has it any 
attributes? No. Has it any relation to the 
universe? No. Though it is the creating pow- 
er, it has created nothing. Though it is first 
cause, it is not the cause of any effect. But 
while the Unknowable has effected nothing, the 
discovery of it has effected a reconciliation be- 
tween Science and Religion. 

Science and Religion are radically different in 
their character, in their province, and in their 
objects. This necessarily makes them different 
in their methods. And here is where they have 
been brought most into conflict. Their antago- 
nism, therefore, has been essentially and mainly 
an antagonism of methods. The method of Sci- 
ence has been a method of investigation and de- 
liberation. Its primary functions consist in the 
collection of facts, the weighing of evidence, and 
the drawing of conclusions. The method of Re- 
ligion is just the reverse. It comes with what 
it claims to be the truth, and says, Receive 
it. 

This conflict Mr. Spencer proposes to recon- 
cile — nay, claims to have reconciled — by a doc- 
trine. But since the antagonism is not based 
upon a doctrine, how can it be reconciled by a 
doctrine? How can a difference of method be 
harmonized by a doctrine? It is not an antag- 
onism of doctrine. Science has never denied 



179 

that God could not be known in his essence, 
and religion has never denied that things could 
not be known in their essence. 

The antagonism being not in doctrine but in 
method, the only way in which a reconciliation 
could be effected, would be to induce Science to 
believe without evidence — which would be im- 
possible — or to induce Religion to submit its 
claims to investigation, and to the weighing of 
evidence . 

It is said that the more scientific Science be- 
comes, the more nearly it is brought to a recog- 
nition of the Omnipotent Unknowable; while 
the more religious Religion becomes, the more 
it ignores every thing but this same Unknowable 
Existence. By the mere announcement of this 
principle, it is claimed that the reconciliation 
has been effected. 

First, is it true that the recognition of the pos- 
itive existence of the Unknowable is the highest 
result of science? When and where has such a y 
thing been stated by any scientist except by the 
author of the New Philosophy? 

The scientists of the nineteenth century ignore 
the entities of the schoolmen — they recognize 
the fact that the boundaries of science lie be- 
tween the known and the unknown. How much 
of the unknown is unknowable they do not un- 
dertake to say. Mr. Spencer himself was at one 
time wavering on this point. A note had been 
prepared by him, which read as follows: 

"Instead of positively saying that the absolute is 



180 

unknowable, we must say that we cannot tell whether 
it is knowable or not." 

And the author says that then, in 1873, the 
note still bore the wafers by which it had been 
attached to the original manuscript. Why he 
omitted that note, he could not then remember. 
— [Essays, Vol. II, p. 220. 

Secondly: Is it true that the recognition of 
the Unknowable is the highest element in relig- 
ion? On the contrary, is it not true that relig- 
ion presupposes the existence of an object of 
worship, which, though unknown and unknowa- 
ble in its essence, may become known in its re- 
lations to man? Such an object of worship is 
supposed to have attributes which can bring it 
into communication with man. Has any other 
kind of religion ever been known in the history 
of the race? 

All the religions of history have been anthro- 
pomorphic. Such is the religion of the Brah- 
mins as interpreted by the incarnations. Such, 
also, is the Buddhist religion. The conceptions 
of the Islamite are anthropomorphic. The re- 
ligion of the Jews was intensely anthropomor- 
phic. The Christian religion has not only adopt- 
ed and incorporated the religion of the Jews, 
but it has, in addition, an anthropomorphic sys- 
tem of its own. Without an anthropomorphic 
God, what becomes of faith, of reverence, of 
worship, of love, of sacrifice, of gratitude, and 
of hope? 

When Paul saw an altar which the Athenians 



1S1 
had erected ,; to the Unknown God," he said, 
"Whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare I 
unto you/' He recognized the fact that in or- 
der to be made the object of worship and the 
basis of a religion, God must be made known, 
in other words, he must be made anthropomor- 
phic. Man must be made to believe that the 
object be worships is in so far like himself as to 
possess like thoughts and feelings, so that a 
bond of sympathy can be established. Thence 
is opened up a whole world of relations which 
else are impossible. And nothing less than this 
is religion. God, being believed to be infinite 
in those attributes which are possessed by man 
in a finite degree, and which, therefore, he can 
understand — attributes of love, mercy, justice, 
wisdom, goodness, and power — becomes intelli- 
itiy an object of love and worship; a being to 
be propitiated. 

The God of the religionists, though he may 
be unknowable, is not unthinkable; for he is 
projected from human thought. But the Un- 
knowable of Spencer is not only unknowable, 
but, as he himself admits, unthinkable, as well. 
Hence, it is an abstraction; nay, more, a nega- 
tion of all thought whatever, as Sir William 
Hamilton maintains. We can truly say that so 
far as we know it does not exist. Mr. Balfour 
remarks that so far as he knows it may be true 
enough that the Unknowable exists, but he 
claims that it is outside of science and of all sci- 
entific research; and. he might have added, out- 



182 

side of all legitimate scientific speculation. So 
far as we know, the Unknowable is nothing. 

Some critics have commented on the fact that 
the term "Unknowable," wherever it is used by 
the author of "First Principles," appears with 
an initial capital letter; and so, also, of every 
term which is used as its equivalent. This crit- 
icism, though it might at first appear to be a tri- 
fling one, is not entirely without force, if the use 
of the capital letter be looked upon as an at- 
tempt to make something out of nothing. Such 
an attempt would of course be futile. The Un- 
knowable is unknowable still; the Unthinkable 
is unthinkable still; and Nothing can never be 
more than nothing. 

The attempt, therefore, to reconcile Science 
and Religion by means of the Unknowable, is 
an attempt to reconcile something with some- 
thing else through the intermediation of no- 
thing. The religionist is asked to withdraw his 
thoughts from the contemplation of his highest 
ideal, and turn them into the blank void of no- 
thingness. If he can succeed in doing this, 
then the old-time antagonism between Religion 
and Science is removed. 

With what sort of religion has the reconcilia- 
tion been effected? Not with the Christian re- 
ligion. This has been repeatedly antagonized 
by Mr. Spencer. Nor has the reconciliation 
been effected with any religion which has as an 
essential element any system of morality. 

It is a remarkable fact that there is no con- 



183 

nection between Spencer's Data of Ethics and 
the Unknowable. On the contrary, the author 
of the Data of Ethics states explicitly that there 
is no relation between morality and the Un- 
knowable. The following is his language: 

"Right, as we can think it, necessitates the thought 
of not-right, or wrong, for its correlative; and hence 
to ascribe Tightness to the acts of the Power manifest- 
ed through phenomena, is to assume the possibility 
that wrong acts may be committed by this Power. 
Hut how came there to exist, apart from this Power, 
conditions of such kind that subordination of its acts 
to them makes them right and insubordination wrong? 
How can Unconditioned Being be subject to condi- 
tions beyond itself V — [Data of Ethics, Sec. 99. 

At the banquet given to Mr. Spencer in New 
York, in l vs _. Professor Fiske, the i^reat expos- 
itor S ncer in this country, in his after-din- 
ner Bpeech, made a mistake when he undertook 
to connect the moral law with the Unknowable. 

"Human responsibility," said Professor Fiske on that 
ision, "is made more strict and solemn than ever 
when the eternal Power that lives in every event of 
the universe is thus seen to be, in the deepest possible 
sense, the author of the moral law that should guide 
our lives." 

The Professor here essayed to establish for 
Mr. Spencer a doctrine which he had himself 
expressly repudiated. 

Since, then, the Unknowable is not subject to 
the moral law, nor in any way connected with it, 
and has no moral character, what becomes of the 
reconciliation between Science and Religion? 



184 

If there be a reconciliation, must it not be with 
a religion devoid of morality? 

Here we have a doctrine which ignores mo- 
rality, which its own author distinctly discon- 
nects from his own system of ethics, and which 
at the same time he sets up as the mediator be- 
tween Science and Religion. 

What Science is, we all know; what Religion 
is or has been, is equally w^ell established. Bui 
efforts are now being made to change the mean- 
ing of the term "Religion." Should those ef- 
forts succeed — should the word acquire a signif- 
ication far different from the meaning which 
has been attached to it in all the ages of the 
past, then and not till then will there be a rec- 
onciliation between Science and Religion. 



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